#at least they let me kill templars tho

[pwnyta]

HUH

So no one was gonna tell me about The Old Guard?

I was supposed to just find it on a random ass Halloween 4 years after it aired... aight.

I mean I thought we were cool but I see how it is.

Anyways I watched it and I loved it IF YOU EVEN CARE.

Opinions-

Andy- Phenomenal. Never seen Charlize Theron look so damn hot. Even with her spooky eyes. Crazy butch bisexual(?) wielding a labrys sometimes. Love. Her church fight was sick as hell... im in denial about the stab tho... you can pry her from my cold dead fingies Netflix.

Booker-Like... OK. Like I get he was sad but its so hard to feel bad for him sometimes and like.. I dont hate him at all but just... I do wanna strangle him a little. JUST A LITTLE. I dont want him to be gone and never see Andy again... I hate that. I hate this movie.

Nicky- Great side profile, terrific nose... what in the Ben Linus is going on with the eyes tho? Those pale buggy eyes... This is your man, Joe? This Italian priest Templar knight with ghost eyes? Aight. Ribbing aside... I love him. Even if hes got spooky eyes.

Joe- Mortal enemies to immortal lovers is diabolical work. If you give me friends to lovers... it better be Crusade era enemies to begrudging companions to understanding friends to soul mates or fucking dont talk to me about it. NGL Joes kinda my favorite. Hes a silly little guy. Maybe my love for Sayid has made me soft for hyper-competent, deadly, romantic, shiny eyed Muslim men IDK.

Nile- LOVE. ..Ya know when Andy was like 'shes just a baby' I was like I sure hope this movie dont make me ship them cuz the fandom is probably gonna be annoying about that line but their plane fight was so hot... SUE ME. ANYWAYS... I love her. Apparently theres a second movie coming out & I cant wait to see her get to be a silly lil guy with the fam cuz she is silly lil guy. I love her relationship with Andy & I hope Andy gets better so they can be together forever & there can be some messy lesbian love triangle nonsense when Quynh.

Quynh- Dont got like... the deepest opinion of her just yet but her and Andy were like the Sapphic Nicky & Joe but in reverse.. like Nicky & Joe killed attacked each other then became lovers and it seems like Andy & Quynh were close and might become enemies? Of course IM GONNA IGNORE THE BAD STUFF AND PRETEND THEY JUST FIND EACH OTHER & ARE IN LOVE FOREVER. So...

Copley- Similar to Book I get his mindset but also I wanna strangle him a little. He is beautiful tho... so... Im interested in how hes gonna fit in with the gang... Im hoping for some drama at the start maybe them being like '...ya but hes not Booker...' and then Copley like... having some big hero moment saving the team or at least one of them and they get real close and then more drama because their new family is also just a normal guy & theyre gonna hurt to lose him some day. ANYWAYS.

MISC stuff I like-

The difference in how Nicky and Joe hug Andy.

Everything about this scene tbh. I just wanna see these types of scenes from now on. Silly lil guy moments.

Also Andys baklava addiction. Baklava is one of those things Ive always wanted to try... like boba and churros... ONE OF THESE DAYS.

This sick ass take down. Actually all the fight scenes were pretty sick. I like seeing them fight baddies all together... ODA TAKES NOTES. Also... full offense to guns but seeing Andy Nicky and Joe wield their old-school weapons is so much cooler... who brings a knife (labrys, long sword, scimitar) to a gun fight? THE COOLEST PEOPLE. THATS WHO.

Joe spitting out a bullet that he got shot in the face with.

'Shes just a baby!' (me with the whole team) Also TBF to Andy... Nile has such a cute baby face.

The development of Andy and Niles relationship. THO TBH I was bothered about Nile getting shot in the head because the exit wound woulda fucked her braids up.... I had a hard time focusing cuz I couldnt let that fact go lmao... It was driving me nuts...

The girls are fighting! (gone sexy)

Eepy not-boyfriends

Ancient head bonks of desperate affection. I hope all three of them head bonk Nile in the next movie. If this doesnt happen... im killing everyone in this room (its just me) and them myself.

This silly bitch in this moment.

Joes 'Hes not my boyfriend' speech. Incurable romantic indeed.

Honestly the soldiers tryin to insult Joe by mockingly asking if Nicky was his boyfriend and getting way more than they bargained for was fucking funny.

I just wish we coulda seen the faces of the guy driving the van as he heard the massacre in the back LMAO. Just keep drivin bud... aint nothin you can do about your boys in the back.

Immortal not-boyfriends gettin silly!

This is a nice plane! Theres a TV Joe!

lmao. The sillies.

Andy and Nile continuing to make me ship them.

Reunited and it feels so.... something but they were fighting together and it was real cool.

THEMB.

'You shot Nicky... you shouldnt have done that....'

Joe- Im a silly lil guy but (suplexes a man and breaks his neck)

Whyd he look so devastated after?

She wont jump out of a plane... but....

You betray Miette? You betray her like the bastard? Oh! OH! BANISHMENT FOR 100 YEARS!

Joe lookin at Booker the whole time... :c

[unreadpoppy]

Screenshots and thoughts part 2

arishok, I did NOT side with you for you to do this man

The happiness i had when I saw the Grey Wardens

uhhh tell that to alistair and anneliese in the Landsmeet, that felt like grey wardens messing with politics

FINALLY this bitch shows up. i will say tho, her entrance, killing the Saarebas, was really dope. Also

💀

OK AND WHERE WAS YOU TO PROTECT MOM HUH???? OFF IN SOME FUCKING TEMPLAR BUSSINESS KILLING MAGES??? CAUSE LAST TIME I CHECKED, IT WAS YOU WHO LEFT THE HOME CAUSE YOU'RE A BITCH BOY, AND ALSO, WHY IS IT HAWKE'S FAULT THAT THERE WAS A CRAZED SERIAL KILLER TARGETTING WOMEN WHO LOOKED LIKE HIS DEAD WIFE/BRIDE, WHEN SHE WAS THE ONLY ONE LOOKING INTO IT PRACTICALLY????????

C'mon first enchanter, show them who's boss

At least someone besides Varric puts some respect on Hawke's name-

I take it back

thank you fenris (and i'm sorry for fumbling your romance)

this fight was stressful and it gave me 'fighting Loghain in the Ladsmeet' vibes cause I used the same tactics. Shoutout to the mabari hound and elfroot potions. Also. CONE OF COLD YOU'LL ALWYAS BE FAMOUS

HEHEHEHE she's so mad

AYYYY CHAMPION AT LAST

Girl, I appreciate it, but it was anything but with how hard that shit was

Cassandra drinking that women supporting women juice

HEHEHEHE intensifies

bitch i'm a mage, why do you think I would take your side?

i have nothing to say, i just liek hawke in this picture, she's so pretty

HI CAN WE STOP BRINGING THAT UP? ALSO, YOU'RE THE TEMPLAR KNIGHT COMMANDER, IT WOULD BE YOUR JOB TO KEEP THAT IN CHECK

on a personal note, bitch i'm brazilian, last time the military decided they'd be fitter to rule than actual politcians, we had a 20+ year dictatorship, so fuck you

wait, I love the Grand Cleric

that's it for yesterday. Let's see what new horrors await us today

[nirikeehan]

You asked me for some more hideous shit so: Thalia & Samson, Hozier prompts, ❛ just put your sweet lips on my lips. we should just kiss like real people do. ❜

Thank you for allowing me to commit this atrocity.

Pairing with this prompt also from you tho honestly idk if this is gonna count as fluff. 😅

This will probably be the next chapter of In Love and War. Shoutout to @little--abyss for making me feel extra normal about Samson tonight.

For @dadrunkwriting

WC: 1611

---

The garland of bruises decorated Samson’s neck in speckles of grey and yellow. Thalia found it difficult to look away, knowing each one was the exact length of Cullen’s fingers. 

“So, m’lady? Did you bring ‘em?” 

The attempt on his life had done nothing to temper Samson’s swagger. He sat in a chair by the narrow infirmary window, leaning back so that only two legs touched the floor. The healers had cleared and converted the store room just for him, their high value prisoner. Samson now enjoyed a private room that locked, with the only window in the entire second floor of the infirmary — to keep him in, on parchment, anyway. To keep people who wished to do him harm out, as well. People like the Inquisition’s commander. 

Thalia took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She watched Raleigh Samson lounge before her, one foot braced against the windowsill, arms crossed behind his head, watching her with hooded grey eyes. He looked better, she estimated, bruises be damned. Though better was a relative word for someone dying of red lyrium toxicity. 

“Yes. I have them.” From her rucksack she produced the tin of tobacco in one hand, the bag of rolling papers in another. “Cigarettes,” she said, her lip curling in disgust. “Just like you asked.”

Samson’s eyes lit up; with a thud, he let the chair fall back on all fours. Thalia ignored the urge to ask whether he’d attended meetings in the Templar Order with the same arrogant posture. He leaned forward eagerly, outstretching bony hands. “Give ‘em here.” 

Thalia crossed the store room and handed him the implements. She stepped backward as soon as he took them, earning a click of his tongue. “No need for that, now. Arm’s length at least from Templars standard in Ostwick too, was it?” 

With a jolt, Thalia realized he was right. “Sorry,” she quipped, not moving. “Force of habit.” 

“Not that you’d like to get any closer, eh?” Samson chuckled, twisting the tin open and taking a deep sniff. “Ah, that’s the stuff. Kirkwall tobacco — nothing like it. You managed to find it all the way down here, did you?” 

Thalia took a small breath. “The Inquisition’s requisitions team has a far reach. It was…” Her gaze trailed to his discolored throat. “The least we could do.”

“Right. Buying my silence, more like. Wouldn’t do to let it get around that your commander tried to kill me with his bare hands.” Smirking, Samson pulled out a thin sheaf of paper and began rolling a cigarette on the spot.

Thalia bit her lip, watching the fluid, practiced motion of his fingers. Why should it surprise her he was an experienced smoker? It wasn’t like other substances bothered him. Cullen had told her once of his preference for “the dust” — a more concentrated, powdered form of lyrium that produced a bigger high. Easy enough to get in Kirkwall for years, apparently. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Sure.” He sprinkled a line of tobacco into the crease he’d folded in the rolling paper. “Take a seat; let’s chat for a bit.” 

Thalia’s eyebrows shot upward, and Samson laughed. “What, thought I wouldn’t take you up on it? I’m starved for conversation, truth be told. Not all of the Inquisition’s in a strangling mood, but that don’t mean many of ‘em are clamoring to talk.” With his chin, he motioned opposite him, toward the narrow cot they’d assigned him as a bed. “Go on.” 

Thalia’s skin crawled. She wanted to assert her authority and leave, but where would she go? Downstairs, where she would have to confront Cullen about his assassination attempt? To the war room, where she would have to explain to Josephine, Leliana and Cassandra why she had set this asinine project in motion — saving the life of Corypheus’s most trusted general? 

She perched on the edge of the cot, knees together, hands folded demurely in her lap. Samson’s gaze traveled from her legs up to her face as he licked the paper and pressed the cigarette shut. Thalia swallowed thickly and turned her gaze out the window, where autumn leaves fluttered on the breeze from a nearby tree.

“You seem healthier,” she offered stiffly. “Your hands aren’t shaking.” 

“I feel better. The blue’s doing the trick, for the moment. Though it’s hardly a long term solution, I’m told.”

“No.” Thalia had spent long hours with the healers recently, going over ideas. They suspected doses of normal lyrium would temper the effects of the red lyrium’s corruption, but could not reverse it. Nor, strictly speaking, was leaning on lyrium a particularly healthy option, given its long-term toll and his self-reported need exceeding that of other Templars. “I’ve asked for the medical opinion of experts at the University of Orlais. I’m hoping they might have some ideas.”

“That’s sweet of you.”

“I pledged I would help you, Samson,” Thalia said, voice soft. “I don’t take such promises lightly.” 

Samson twirled the rolled cigarette in his fingers. “Cullen wasn’t thrilled to hear it.” 

“Cullen said you provoked him.”

Samson shrugged. “Cullen always had a difficult time taking a joke. Besides, with both of you denying that you’re paramours, what’s a lonely man like me to do?” 

Thalia stared at him. “You can’t be serious.” 

“What?” Samson smirked. “I’ve still got eyes, don’t I? The intelligence reports had a lot to say about you, but none quite captured your beauty.”

Thalia felt her face go hot. This cannot be happening right now. “Do you say that to all the girls, or just the ones you tried to recruit for Corypheus?”

“Ha!” Samson barked. “Oh, you are quick. I can see why Cullen likes you.”

Thalia swallowed thickly. She did not wish to give Samson more ammunition against her or Cullen; if it meant enduring a little flirtation, she’d deal with it. “Have many women taken you up on your offers lately?”

Samson’s eyes darkened. “Plenty.”

“Women you haven’t paid?” 

“M’lady is so cruel,” Samson growled, though a wicked smile stretched across his narrow face. “Poor deteriorating Samson, is that what you’re implying? I used to be quite popular with the Kirkwall ladies, I’ll have you know.” He held the cigarette between his index and middle fingers and used it to point at her. “And don’t listen to what Cullen says, they weren’t all from the Blooming Rose.” 

Thalia’s eyebrows shot upward. “Is that a… pub?”

Samson chuckled. “Best brothel in Kirkwall.” 

Oh, Maker. “And you… visited this place a lot?”

“Not a lot. But please, don’t look at me like that. All the Templars went. It was the only way we could blow off steam while under the tyranny of that bitch, Meredith.” 

“All the Templars?” Thalia asked before she could stop herself. 

“What’s so surprising about that?” Samson squinted. “Ah, I see. Can’t picture Cullen paying a woman for company?”

“No, to be honest,” Thalia huffed, her chest tight. 

“What if I told you he was there more’n me? That the pressures of a Knight-Captain were oh so burdensome, so of course he had to relieve them somehow?”

“Then I’d call you a liar,” Thalia said, her heart pounding in her ears.

Samson leaned back in his seat, threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, yeah; you’re right. I could never get him to the Hanged Man, let alone a brothel. Some nonsense about ‘the women deserve better,’ I don’t bloody know.” 

Thalia let out a slow breath, trying to calm herself. “You’re a real bastard, aren’t you, Samson?”

“Why?” Samson retorted. “Regretting your decision to save me?” 

“It’s hard to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Thalia said quietly. 

A long silence followed. Samson’s face went slack; he lowered his head and scraped his fingers along the stubble darkening his jaw. Thalia stood, deciding now was the time to take her leave. “I’d think about that if I were you,” she murmured on her way to the door.

“Hey.” 

Thalia paused and looked at him over her shoulder. 

Samson stuck the cigarette in his mouth and smiled ruefully around it. “Got a light, m’lady?”  

Thalia blinked, surprised. “Oh. No, I…” It hadn’t even occurred to her that to smoke a cigarette, he’d need to light one. “I didn’t think to bring any matches.”

“What, can’t you just—?” Samson snapped his fingers in the air. 

Startled, Thalia looked down at her hand. “I suppose…” 

She inched closer to where he sat, waiting expectantly. She leaned down, coaxing a small fire to life at the edge of her front two fingers. Samson leaned forward, the sharp angles of his face illuminated by the flame, and touched it with the tip of the cigarette. He inhaled deeply, leaned back, and drew the cigarette from his mouth. It dangled from his fingers as he turned from her and languidly exhaled a stream of smoke. 

“Ahhh. Kirkwall tobacco.” He sighed happily. 

Thalia tried to straighten, but Samson caught her by the arm. In one quick motion, he pulled her so close she nearly fell into his lap. 

“You know.” His eyes roved her face as he sucked down another drag. The acrid scent of smoke filled her nose and made her cough. She was close enough to count the hairs on his receding forehead, to note every line of crow’s feet around his eyes. “We should just kiss like real people do.” 

Heart thudding, Thalia wrenched violently against his grip and twisted away. Samson’s laugh echoed in her ears even as she slammed the door and fled past the guards standing watch. 

[piratekenway]

Ezio makes Arno show off the Phantom Blades to him so he can sketch it in a notebook. yanno, just in case he runs into Leonardo, so he can present it to him and watch Leonardo be like OH!!! this is so cool!

meanwhile

Evie: that was a special case! Edward: just hand over the bloody rope spools— Jacob: oh come on, Kenway, it gets us up places faster! Edward: you can climb like the rest of us. hand over the ropes.

Aveline and Edward occasionally leaning over and rooting for their little fleet to expand across the Atlantic. whenever they lose a ship in a ship battle Aveline holds a little funeral for it and Edward eulogizes the poor ship, even tho technically the thing never actually existed. Edward does ask her once or twice if she wants to head out and take a few ships for the fleet minigame since hey, look, the Jackdaw/Aquila fusion sitting in the harbor over there would make mincemeat out of any other ship, with its combined capabilities.

“I bet she might even be able to take on El bloody Impoluto like this,” he says.

Aveline is just like, hmmm. you know what. I’ll take that challenge. which is probably what they get up to once the twins, Jayadeep and Arno are off to check on their simulations and Edward’s sure that everyone on Great Inagua will behave themselves. Ezio swears that they all will! Altair bets they won’t. Desmond is just glad for the opportunity to learn shit and also incidentally bottle up all his incredibly complicated feelings and the existential crisis he’s having at the moment. give him tasks to do! like learn how to hunt!

--

oh DEF. I like to think the degree of corruption varies based on like, how willing somebody would be anyway to listen to Juno. someone like, say, Adé or Lydia or Elise would have it the worst bc Juno has to really work on them, but somebody like Roth doesn’t get corrupted as much. he’d probably be the Krauser of this whole mess now that I think about it—fully aware of what’s going on, reveling in the power and the chaos. Jacob is gonna have such a bad time!

the idea of Juno building her own little group of corrupted Assassins and Templars and co. to go against the gang is very fun and angsty to me! even better is I think the idea that a few of the Assassins have two of their loved ones to deal with, bc Juno is covering as many angles as possible, and in at least one case (ie Ezio) she has a deep grudge. hell, she’d have a grudge against Edward since he killed her husband one time, which means Ade and Mary! much to Ed’s deep consternation. Connor gets Achilles and Kanen'tó:kon.

but they don’t find this out immediately. this is how they find out that something’s terribly off here: the lil chaotic quartet are just heading back to the Café Theatre when Arno catches sight of Elise, which is completely insane, bc Elise by this time is dead. so he chases after her, and the London Assassins run after him, only for Elise to lead them into an ambush by Blighters, which is the biggest sign there is that something is Very Wrong here, bc this is the wrong century and the wrong country for the Blighters.

Arno calls out at Elise, like, Elise, it’s me! it’s just me! these are friends of mine, what’s wrong, please tell me—

and when she turns around he sees that there’s a glow to her eyes that is NOT good. when she moves there’s something strange, like the animation is lagging a little. and she says something like, why couldn’t you let me die? why couldn’t you let me go?

and they have to quickly run for it for some reason, maybe there’s a Blighter carriage riding up to try and kill them, and in the process Jayadeep finds a server bridge that leads back to Great Inagua but it’s not stable enough to take all four of them. so they push Evie through with a warning: someone’s in the Assassin servers, pouring poison into their friends’ ears. they’ve got Elise. there’s Blighters in Paris, which doesn’t bode well. find us in Russia, whoever it is likely doesn’t have a foothold there.

Evie delivers this message, and Desmond immediately clocks who it is: Juno. but it doesn’t make sense! she was dead last he checked. and Connor, frowning, mentions that he and Ezio and Altair had compared experiences in rescuing him and Ezio had mentioned that he and Shay were possessed, briefly, by a Precursor’s spirit. so then Desmond is like OH FUCK, we have to rescue the guys! FUCK. shit. Aveline and Edward are still out there, fuck—SHAY. HEY, CORMAC.

“what?” says Shay, briefly torn away from sketching out a diagram of how a shrapnel grenade works for Ezio to take to Leonardo if he finds him.

“where would you dock the Morrigan usually when you weren’t using her to do shit for the Templars?” Desmond asks.

“uh,” says Shay, racking his brain a bit for his most visited harbor. “the New York harbor. why?”

“you mean to find Edward and Aveline and warn them of the danger,” Ratonhnhaké:ton realizes. (Shay: what danger???) they can’t fast travel to the Jackdaw—there’s no way to fast travel to the open goddamn sea and they don’t actually know where they’ve gone, so stealing the Morrigan it must be. should be a piece of cake!

and then the 1700s America era gang + Desmond get a portal open to New York and drop right in, and, uh.

It Is Not A Piece Of Cake.

the post is getting Too Long on my blog and it’s breaking my poor phone so. WHEE. new one!

gang sails off into the distance! and by “distance” I mean they’re high-tailing it into the Assassin servers in order to regroup and recuperate and figure out what the fuck to do now since. well. hey, they retrieved Desmond and they’ve kept him safe! uh. now what. if there were other Assassins’ memories in Abstergo, how long until they gain sentience as well? and how the fuck did Desmond and Jacob find a movie projector on the ship?

Desmond is still kind of reeling from everything that’s just happened, and to his surprise, despite the whole awkwardness surrounding Uh Fuckin Everything, the Kenways are willing to take him in, altho Edward somewhat morbidly jokes that their dysfunctional family being an improvement over his is really kind of sad when he thinks about it. then he offers to let him take a turn at the wheel—he needs to go see what they’ve done to the captain’s cabin anyway, he wasn’t able to since the collision and it’s probably messed with a few things.

they do need a base to operate out of for the time being. Davenport Manor is suggested, then somewhat reluctantly shot down bc of the two Templars around who are immediately like yeah uh No. Café Theatre is too cramped, although in a pinch it could do. the Frye twins’ train has little to offer in the way of bedrooms. Monteriggioni is considered and makes it into a top five list, only losing bc an entire town is a little too big and prone to glitches. (Desmond is a little peeved about it.) eventually everyone settles on finding a version of Great Inagua in the Assassin servers and regrouping there so they can figure out their next move. and maybe Edward is a little bit smug over it.

I do like the idea of Desmond teaching the gang how to really break shit in Abstergo, like—Juno is still in there, and there’s a possibility there might be more sentient data representations of dead Assassins (and dead Templars) rolling around now in the servers. Ezio shudders to think of Juno at the same time that Shay does, and they’re both concerned about the idea of Juno being able to simply possess somebody, and if she’s able to do that in the digital realm, there’s the lingering possibility of her being able to do that to an actual flesh and blood person. which nobody wants! so that’s on their priority list. and also all the other possibly-sentient people who might be running around the servers.

Arno and the twins and Henry listen to all of this, then sit in contemplation. then all three of them are like. oh shit we have to check on our simulations bc Lydia and Elise might also be gaining sentience and god KNOWS what they’re doing right now without us. who wants to come with, we’ve got spare clothes for you. (aka: how to justify the legacy outfits lol.)

The “Too Long Post” which was about the playable characters in Abstergo’s games gaining sentience for easy reference. (And considering we ended it after they got away, we can count that as Arc 1 XD)

Honestly, I think the only valid locations for their homebase would be the Great Inagua or Davenport Homestead because they also need to park their ship (depending on who you ask, it’s either called ‘Aquila’ or ‘Jackdaw’) and the Seine river would be hard to navigate while the Thames is chock-full of other ships and boats and the moving train means they can’t always get to the ship quickly. Also, they all try to fit in the mansion that Edward had ‘commandeered’ but it becomes clear that there is a division. Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton took the rooms nearest to Desmond. Haytham took the room furthest away from everyone and Shay took the room to his left. Shao Jun took the empty room nearest to Ezio while Aveline took the empty room nearest to Ratonhnhaké:ton. Jacob’s the only one who went ‘whichever room is free’ and Arno took the room furthest away from Shay which sorta put him between Jacob and an empty room that Evie took for herself. Jacob joked of Jayadeep just sharing a room with Evie so he took the room on the other side of Jacob instead, making Jacob roll his eyes. Edward just took his old room (which was the largest room). So… they might be in this together but they’re definitely not exactly the bestest of allies at the moment.  

Desmond taught them what he knew, things he didn’t know when he was alive but he just… knew once he ‘woke up’. He doesn’t even know if these skills came from his memory of Clay or from his memory of Dionysus (holy shit, his Isu ancestor was the god of wine and debauchery? What the fuck???) but he wasn’t going to reject such a boon. He’s quiet about his life though, only sharing a bit if anyone asked about what they saw. 

And the only one who asked was a worried Shao Jun because Shay was keeping his distance and the others either didn’t have such a bad memory to watch (Aveline, Evie and Jayadeep) or didn’t even see any memory (Jacob and Arno).

The ones connected to Desmond though… Desmond told them everything. Even Edward who was just in the room with the three people who had the biggest urge to find Desmond and Haytham who Edward believes had been affected just as much by the time they started to piece Desmond back together. Edward provided the alcohol back then (although Altaïr did not partake) and they finished more than five bottles of Edward’s hardest liquor. He was especially worried for Haytham who grabbed an entire unopened bottle and just started topping his glass with it and ended up finishing it and still requesting his glass to be filled afterward.  

Are we talking about the Juno in Desmond’s dataspace or the real Juno in digital space? Because if it’s the real Juno and this is set after Syndicate BUT before the comics where she died, then Juno is out in the real world (which would give us an excuse to have our sentient Assassins travel into other corners of the internet XD).

However, I do like the idea that they’ve unintentionally created Juno 2.0 from Desmond’s memory of her (and also a bit of Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton’s memories). This also gives Ratonhnhaké:ton a reason to want to take her down since she… technically didn’t lie but she absolutely used Ratonhnhaké:ton and gave him the short stick in that deal. (With her past misgivings to Ratonhnhaké:ton, Edward would be on board and maybe even Haytham once he learned how everything had been set into stones because of the path the Isus have chosen the world to walk to, including how the Kenway family ended).

You know what would be fun? If they made the grievous assumption that the data are gaining sentient while they were gone BUT the real reason why they’re slowly gaining sentient is because all sentient data (them) are still connected to the virus that started this all. Now, the virus was fast-acting in Abstergo because it was meant to fuck shit up there but the virus also have a failsafe that makes it dormant when it knows it’s no longer in Abstergo’s servers. But… the virus itself might be dormant but constant exposure to it will still affect data. 

… wanna make Arno have a bad time once more? Élise is slowly waking up and she starts remembering…

The many times Arno repeated her death, together with the pain and rage that consumed her during those days, not knowing Arno repeated that memory over and over again to try and save her.

You gotta wonder… if Élise would even be happy to see Arno once more when her most lived memory was her death.

(Also… Lydia would be fine being sentient since she loves her grandaunt and granddad who raised her but… remember… Jack the Ripper is also in the servers). 

[abbeyfangirl]

dragon age: all characters (companions)

I’ve been in this fandom for a hot minute now and I want to update my opinions on characters :)

Origins

Alistair: super sweet dude who literally is not the stereotypicalchantryguyfightme. He’s a great example of healthy masculinity and I totally wish he was bi because I have an entire essay on that— also: he’s a poc! His mum was brown. In game he’s got dark features. if you really want a blond/blue-eyes/white guy, make your warden that. or accept that brown people can be noble and moral. or just draw cailan, idk. just because BioWare whitewashes doesn’t mean you should.

Leliana: someone hug my singing girlfriend before I crush her under with my own hugs. Also: nugs. Yes! Shoes. Yes! She likes how I style my hair? YES!! I honestly think she’s super duper and it pisses me off whenever someone’s like: yeah she enjoys killing people and the Game. ok. and michel de chevin willingly participated in genocidal marches through the alienage he grew up in with his elvhen mum. 

Morrigan: dirty swamp witch that i stan and also have a v big crush on. tiddies. Have a son with a GW so we can raise him with our tiddies out in the forest. she’s also white-passing, as her father was chasind and all people we’ve seen that are chasind are black. therefore, she is biracial. therefore, poc can be goths and don’t shy away from giving morrigan a darker skintone. if the devs had of been thinking, she’d have a darker skintone.

Zevran: Actually is the best romance, I think. Loves consent, therefore I will stan him so hard my skull cracks a little. Also: he is a very brown boy and if he’s white in da4 I’m seriously going to throw all canon out the fucking window. genuinely a good person who needs to be told so. 

Wynne: grandma who only likes my friends who go to church. but also super sweet and I’d rest my head on her bosom (in a platonic way omg ZEVRAN)

Sten: angry quiet boi. the bestest boi. I totally would give him a kitten for a gift and bake him cookies. Thicc softie. I think if I had DA:O and i knew how to use mods i would mod the fuck outta him. sorry.

Sha(y)le: who’s gender? idk her. See also: fuck birds and authority. pound ur ass into the ground you feathery meatbag little shits. fuck songbirds.

Dog: such a good boi. thicc. thinks Alistair is a whiny fuck and is Morrigan’s only friend. love him. he’s the cutest companion. bet.

Ohgren: honestly forgot about him bcc he’s such a shitbag. also: he could’ve been a really cool addiction recovery type but NOPE. probably would have a trump shirt in a modern au and would catcall wlw and hit mlm. no thanks.

Awakening

Anders: he acts like rlly straight but he’s so gay I can smell it. also he’s rlly cute and fun and I love him so much.

Justice: MAYBE i’M selF CONSCious OF THE twitchING. is the friend that genuinely doesn’t get dick jokes but is ur 110% ride or die.

Nathaniel Howe: honestly is sort of a white knight/neck beard a little, but it’s kind of charming with his whole velanna m’lady?? grump boi. annoying soul patch that I’d mod out SO FAST—

Sigrun: would have ROMANCED the FUCK out of her. why she even entertains the idea of fucking with ohgren makes me realize most of the writers are dumbfucks.png. peppy little emo. 12/10 would die if she kissed my cheek teasingly.

Ohgren: why. why. why. I’d have brought Shayle over. Maybe Zev? Definitely Dog.

Velanna: she was written to be an annoying feminist and you can tell but I deadass am a kindred spirit with her bcc I too am deadpan annoyed with Thedas’ general population too. love her. Would’ve loved to romance her. She’d totally be one of those who’d get all tsundere and be like “n-no i hate you” *kisses the fuckin soul out of you then blushes so hard she’s now a tomato*

Dragon Age II

Anders: fuck the cops. i don’t care. fuck the cops. (vine reference). also: do i hate him for blowing up the chantry that would eventually annul a huge collection of his people? no. read dalishious’s meta on Anders. v intriguing. didn’t they retcon the fuck out of the reported deaths too? like there was like eight Templars and Elthinia in there. Templars killed more “abominations” in a day than Anders in the game canon—

Aveline: initially thought she was fine and then realized she’s shit to my lil brother and I will fucking clap her ginger ass. See also: whorephobia isn’t a joke so fuck off with treating Isabela badly, you tit.

Bethany: sunshine. Literal sunshine. I feel my freckles grow in her presence and i love it. she’s my little baby sister and I’d slam that ogre so fuckin hard before it touched either twin.

Carver: there has to be a mod where both twins survive. I love them both to bits. My babies. carver is my bitter, angry little brother and I can relate because I too am very angry and would totally clap my own ass. hes so genuine and I don’t get the competition between Beth and Carver. Like, both are fuckin stellar in different ways. In this essay I will—

Fenris: honestly, I don’t get the general hate between him and Anders. Fenris’ main arc should’ve been a recovery arc, not drunken moping and revenge. he deserves better. give him a soft sweater instead of his spikes and let him love himself as much as I love him for MAKERS SAKE. like when you really think about their relationship, it could’ve been an eye-opener for fenris and finally some legit sympathy for anders. but we all know that if they had of teamed up that Meredith would’ve been dead before the end of Act 1 so.

Isabela: whorephobia is not a joke. oversexualizing your only appearing brown woman is so poorly written. how about we appreciate her and her lovely bosoms but also let people tease her about her heart of gold? her innate understanding of freedom? instead of just a wave of dick? please?? can we give her some pants for when she fights? can we accept that i fall for rogues who hate themselves?? fuck. also whomever draws her x femHawke x Merrill literally is after my own heart.

Merrill: my fucking babygirl MARRY ME. Fenris could’ve been her older brother type, but NO. she and Isabela should’ve been canonical gfs instead of Isabela/Fenris (no shaming the pairing tho!!). I love how she’s written as neurodivergent. V nice. Sometimes I just look her up and cry because she’s fucking everything. Also: she’s in the Dalish origin and she’s far from being white. Why did they make the most innocent/naïve character really white? hmmmm.

Sebastian: whew that boy. Would totally be that annoying Mormon at your door but you still let him in bcc he’s super sweet. Also: huge ass bible thumper and should get his head slap because you said the maker loved all his children why do you defend a complicit old hag you annoying attractive fuck—

Varric: totally is a bard and the devs couldn’t handle the idea of him being one bcc it might make him look less straight. is the only grey morality person I don’t want to fucking bash in with a fry pan. he sees people and I like that, but you totally know he’s siding with mages every time bcc him and Anders are like besties. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules. “Professional Younger Brother”.

Tallis: I know nothing about her but she seems okay. I think she was an escaped slave and honestly? Fucking props. Spy on a shitting organization, idk what you’re doing, but your VA was that cool lesbian from SPN so I think ur okay?

Inquisition

Blackwall: Redemption Arc 101. Love him to bits. Sad dad bunwall. good man. actually atoned for his sins by actively becoming a good person. his initial design is 80% hotter im so sorry but so not.

Cassandra: was way browner in the last game. would romance the fuck outta her. I love me a butch lady who melts at my dorky recitation of poetry. BioWare is a coward. also is the worst choice for divine. but not a bad person. could use some more guidance or get her ass whipped by a dalish elf about religion or a circle mage kid whos like “yeah bud i didn’t ask for the templars to whip my ass everyday for existing.”

The Iron Bull: I think the Qunari/Vashoth were a little based off black people (the whole anti blackness thing where ppl are scared of them bcc of whatever reason) and it pisses me off that he had a weird ass dubcon thing with Dorian in banter. It doesn’t make sense— he’s an A+++ dom and would not jump straight in role play without at least checking in at first like wtf BioWare.

Cole: his mother was chasind so he’s like not supposed to be that white? or like biracial? albino? idk. love him to bits tho. He’s neurodivergent and I deadass love him. romancing him? idk. I see why ppl think it’s fuckin nasty but also like as a writer I’d age him the fuck up so fast before my inquisitor even THOUGHT about that. like idk. I’m down with him being a sweet little bro character tho. he’s a babe. love him.

Sera: had the worst fucking writer I’ve ever seen and I willingly read the twilight saga twice by a shit ass racist white lady who okay’d pedophilia. like. Fuck you Kristjanson suck your own dick you fuck. had the worst options in regards to speak to her. has a thicc case of internalized racism that literally most of the fandom just loves to use against her. my lesbian neurodivergent queen. Would write a thousand fix it fics for her. Love her to bits. im gay.

Varric: I haven’t played DA2 so i don’t get why everyone wants to romance him but like. a dwarf romance? yes please. Idk he reminds me of my uncle so I only see him as fun uncle material. Deadass should adopt Cole and Merrill and co parent with Blackwall for Sera. dads? fuck yeah. love me some wholesome, present fathers.

Dorian: is a gay stereotype that I love/hate so much. and he’s also just as bad about being a creep bcc he sexualizes qunari men (in banter). I attribute that to shit writing tho. I want to protect him from all the “omg gay best friend!” people. he’d clearly be that tired gay that wouldn’t give a diddly damn about ur het romance. wanna talk about politics? he’s ur guy/gay.

Solas: “me, an intellectual:”. I don’t hate him, but I’m not about him. He comes off as mysterious and suave (which he totally is) but I deadass would not save him from himself because he’s a racist, exclusionist eggshell. idk. not my cup of tea, but I can totally see the appeal. And he’s interesting, I’ll totally say that. “I think the Dalish are garbage but they made you” is not a compliment. it’s so offensive. and such bait for “quirky girls” which I’m no fan of. Would be Achilles and let Patroclus (Lavellan in his case) die before he realized how his pride is literally a waste of time. If he gets a redemption arc I hope Lavellan gets to slap him before getting him to teach all about ancient Arlathan and show that the Evanuris weren’t all total dicknozzles. (Aka I really have a hard time believing that they’d be slavery cult things. especially since they’ve compared elves to indigenous ppl, Jews and the Romani.)

Vivienne: it’s so racist that they’d make a black woman be pro-slavery. That’s such internalized racism. She could’ve been the cool ass “educate yourself first before you speak, fool” ice lady, but NO. the devs could’ve kept the “Templars are a tool that I proudly can mandate” and the “circles are very good education” and we. Could. Have. Romanced. Her. Like. Fuck. Sake. I just wanna give her a hug and say “love yourself omg!!” and not even in a romantic way. Also: she and morrigan should not have been so antagonistic towards each other. I’d expect them to have great respect for each other, as they both moved up in the world through hardwork and very little help. They could learn different magic from each other too and still maintain that rival respect “oh you” mood. Sidenote: probably the cooler option for Divine. if her approval is high enough she’ll love and be loyal to you forever and i can’t see her agenda being bad. she improves the circles exponentially and tells all the antis to suck her pretty painted toes.

Josephine: an actual disney princess. romanced her my first playthrough. I love her so much. she just makes me so happy. And she’s like: “Integrity, Loyalty, peace. That is what it means to be a GREY WARDEN good fucking person.” she’s the person who would let you hold her hand if you got anxious and she’d be that person who shouldered the whole group project with finesse and poise and would probably lie for everyone as to not be mean. i love josie. her and leliana’s relationship is so cute, too. whether it’s romantic or not: women supporting women.

Leliana: if you leave her hardened you must hate her. why. she becomes so against herself. i like how shes feminine and lighthearted because that’s so powerful-- to remain hopeful when the world is hopeless. (its hard to know when to soften her/harden her so i get it but. google it. she deserves to be happy and sweet again.)

Cullen: uwu war criminal with shit ass “redemption arc” that was actually a half-assed (at BEST) recovery arc. Recovery isn’t linear, it isn’t pretty, and even the broken need to be told they are wrong in order to heal right. Like I’m offended by that bullshit. I’ve had to do some mental health recovery in the past and unlearning lots of toxic ideologies— which I’m still unlearning— and it bothers me that he gets an easy pass because he’s hot. It’s one thing if you like Cullen, it’s another thing if you hold him accountable.

[ohsweetflips]

DAO really was the best game, the lore the ability to absolutely wreck shit, the fact that they didnt do that bullshit ‘all sides are grey’ and clearly showed oppression. I think of my warden, an elven mage, and wonder how she’ll be rewritten more than anything.

right like!!!! i love each dragon age game with my whole heart and they all have super special places in said heart, but origins handles a lot of the social problems really well, or at least from the perspective that i play it as (also an elven mage!)

the rest i’m putting under the cut bc holy shit i can talk abt dragon age a lot. also nothing is proofred. i’m so sorry this got so long i hear “bioware” and “grey morality” and i go wild

(pls talk to me abt dragon age.....)

(also please don’t reblog this!!)

like i understand da2 having a type of grey-morality thing bc the final battle was choosing between the mages and the templars (tho imo they could’ve done better than “the mages hate us bc we keep them locked in a tower and there are multiple accounts of us abusing them and therefore some of them turn to blood magic so therefore we should kill all of them” but still, in a setting like that where the Main End Game Choice was mages vs. templars, then that is understandable)

(but also i haven’t played da2 in a couple years so maybe it’s more nuanced than that)

but inquisition! it’s weird bc inq has a super special place in my heart. i’ve played it 6 or 7 times to completion, not counting the other times i got 20/30 hours into it before external forces distracted me. inq is overall the game i think abt the most, most of my playthroughs average over 100 hours, it’s the only game that i have all the dlcs for, for me it’s the easiest to replay, and yet there’s so much that frustrates me abt it! like, i’m gonna avoid talking abt the actual parts of the writing that bother me, bc that can be it’s own standalone thing, but imo it felt like they never actually solidified what actually caused the mage/templar war? there are those that say anders started it (seems likely), then there are those who talk abt fiona leading the rebel mages in the war? and there, of course, is the “the templars have done wrong but so have they mages and therefore you’re shamed either way for what you do” like i Get what they’re trying to do, trying to encourage players to explore their options and really delve into their own moral values of the game and not just adhere to what the game says, but idk the way they always went abt it always rubbed me some type of wrong

i think part of it is bc, when people mention circle mages turning to blood mages and demons and such like that, it was always framed as “ah these evil mages!” and not “[if these are circle mages] most likely their want for freedom pushed them to that”

does that make it right? no, not necessarily! look at uldred from dao! imo, he was wrong! i don’t like the circle and my warden herself has a complicated relationship with it, but i like that you can say “hey! this is wrong!” without legitimate plot-based “but what if it isn’t?”

of course there will always be companions who push for the more chaotic/harsh choices (morrigan is the one i have the most experience with giving me disapproval for being what i think is nice) (still love her tho), but i think dao handled “okay, look at the big picture, and really think abt what hill u want to die on” stance well

and then there’s the way the mage/templar thing is handled in inquisition vis a vis companions. specifically cullen. and, listen, i as a player have a very complicated relationship with cullen and my heros do too lmao. and i really don’t want to get into the nuances of that bc that can 1) turn into a fight i don’t feel like having and 2) can be it’s own discussion, but basically, from my own perspective, he’s a well-written character who makes for a good antag to a mage-siding hawke in da2 bc of how pro-templar/anti-mage he is. again, don’t agree with any of it (honestly da2 alone puts me on the “okay fuck this” level w/ his character), but it does offer an extreme that is interesting to see. origins is more complicated bc in a game not directly stepped in mage/templar and also a game that stems from 6 different origin stories, it’s very easy to be a non-mage and be like “why do i care abt this guy” (if you get what i’m saying? like i got immediately invested in saving the mages bc my first warden was a circle mage so i was very put off by being told to kill all of them, as compared to if i played a non-mage origin and didn’t really have that background knowledge). but overall, origins and da2 puts cullen on the “pro-templars, mages are more dangerous than they are good side.” and then inquisition is where things get interesting!!

and, for a quick ref, i’m very into getting invested in my characters and really figuring out their morals and what they would actually do, or at least think, so dai becomes interesting bc i play as another elven mage who has never stepped foot in a circle and never will. so, bc of that, i play him as naturally more inclined to not initially Think abt cullen’s past like as a templar bc, as a dalish mage, i hc that he does not know what actually goes on in circles (as compared to my warden, a circle mage, and my hawke, an apostate) (but i hc that, overtime, as he has more and more experiences with templars, he becomes more cognizant of that) (but bioware doesn’t give me the option to just dictate everything my camris lavellan is thinking akjsjkdjk)

and dai-cullen, imo, is actually very interesting! and, tbh, i do have to give it to bioware. i feel like i’m abt to say an unironic controversial opinion, and i feel like i’ve already talked abt the nuances of all of this, but i do think dai did well at reworking cullen’s character. however, i feel like that was also done to feed into the grey-ness of the mage/templars. and, imo, i think they almost did well at actually making cullen show regret for how he treated mages. almost. again, i think there’s a lot of nuance! bc we do see him show some type of regret for how he treated a mage!warden (if he said all that shit like “all these people’s blood are on your hands” if u talk abt not wanting to kill innocent mages) and we do see him step away from templar life (that is, if you tell him to stop taking lyrium)

but!!!! there’s One Thing that puts a thorn in this, and it’s that cullen says something along the lines of, “meredith wasn’t all wrong, she had reason” like bitch!!! no matter what side you choose in da2, you fucking fight meredith!!! she’s wanted to kill innocent mages/make them tranquil even before anders blew up the chantry!!! meredith was all wrong!! she was evil!!!!! she was objectively a harmful person!!!!!!!!! bioware really makes this bitch the final boss of da2 and then has the audacity to say “but maybe she wasn’t all bad” in dai like WHERE IS THIS FOR ORSINO??? ORSINO ISN’T ALL BAD, IS HE???????? OH BUT HE IS BC HE RESORTED TO SUDDEN BLOOD MAGIC IN THE LAST TEN MINUTES OF THE GAME, AS COMPARED TO MEREDITH WHO WAS A DANGER FOR THE ENTIRE FINAL ACT and i digress but the fact that bioware is trying to redeem cullen but also showing that he still sympathizes with a woman who 1) turned against the templars and 2) Literally Everything She Did To The Mages always makes me “hmmmm are u really trying tho :/”

also tho one thing i’m actually not the biggest fan of is that cullen is like “oh i knew hawke in passing........ knew varric in passing.............” meanwhile let’s just cut to everything that happened at kirkwall. this is my own opinion bc i see varric as hawke’s #1 but i personally think that at least half of the comraderie varric and cullen sorta-kinda-had in inq was varric testing the waters of “okay what is cullen going to be like if and when hawke shows up”

also tho i will say a hot-take of mine is that if cullen gets to be redeemed by bioware, then i want something for anders, too, but i doubt bioware would do something so clearly pro-mage. but it could be two sides of the extreme! extremist templar gets redemption, extremist mage does, too! come on, bioware, show your grey morality

(again, i think it’s interesting what they did with cullen in dai and does give some sympathetic light but i also do think the reworking of his character was working towards bioware’s moral-greyness agenda with dragon age. not that that’s necessarily a terrible thing, i understand them wanting some nuance, but it’s the way they do it. like, you can show bad templars and bad mages and still not have “but who is really the bad guy? the oppressors or the oppressed? who is it really?”)

(and also just bc i feel like i need to put my own player claim in this, my opinion on cullen is complicated and also i’m gonna be completely forth-right with u, dear anon, i appreciate cullen in inquisition but, as a whole, he can be terrible to ur warden in dao (that’s not me being shifty it literally just depends on the choice you make in broken circle) and in da2 he’s a nightmare, so bioware had to do a lot of legwork in dai) (tbh tho in my personal-player opinion, if i was to ever romance cullen in inq, it’s not gonna be with a mage)

god this got so out of hand anon i’m so sorry you probably didn’t want this messy essay but i just love talking abt dragon age!!! i think abt it a lot and i have five years worth of headcanons and i have a family tree set up for my surana/lavellan bc of some bullshit i pulled and also!!!! bioware’s writing can get so frustrating but i also think it’s so interesting to pull apart and discuss bc i think the bioware has actually shifted from pro-mage (origins) to neutral-mage (da2 kinda) to anti-mage (dai) and i feel like So Many Choices with characters and their plots reveal that!!! so it’s a frustrating agenda but i also just love dragon age so much that i can’t help but get excited and talk abt it!!!

like, as all things, i do believe there are times when grey morality does work, but, at least from a mage-siding perspective, it hasn’t really landed well for dragon age. bc, and i don’t want to drag in real-life scenarios bc i feel like it would be incredibly inappropriate of me to use any oppressed minority as a comparison for a fantasy world, but it’s the age-old thing of people saying the shitty “but the oppressed fight back and therefore they’re just as bad as the oppressors!” and that’s like....... not how it works.

but also you’ve caught me in a wonderful mood so i feel like, if i was in a bad mood, this would be a lot more “and fucking bioware can’t make a goddamn decision on what side they actually support so instead most of the companions are gonna made rude remarks abt you supporting mages and the ones that support you are seen as distrustful and fuck this and fuck that” but i think that is the joy of loving something with you’re whole heart and also saying “there are so many things abt this that piss me off and so many things that i would change”

and also!!!! ik bioware probably killed my warden so like rip electra surana but i would love for the warden to make an appearance in da4 as a temporary companion/advisor. but! but!!!!!! i also don’t know how much i trust bioware with my “elven mage who is alistair’s mistress and preferred the mages and wanted to free the circles and etc etc etc” bc... idk how to explain it? like, i don’t want them taking my warden and putting words in her mouth that go against choices i meticulously made in dao

[burnededens]

   ( avan jogia, trans male, he/him, assassin’s creed: syndicate ) * &. i know it must be scary for you, jacob frye, after not surviving the takeover. to turn into someone like jacob "jake” fowles, a twenty-five year-old bartender at dragon’s breath brewery & fighter at the ring, right here in castle town. just remember that you are as charming as you are reckless, and to be wary, be safe, be true to who you are : neutral through and through. ( hylia gets assassin’s creed on main )

   SO FUN FACT - I have been wanting to write this character in this group for months and it is absolutely a crime that it took me this long to pick him up but here we FINALLY are ! I’m genuinely shocked he’s the first Assassin’s Creed character here because I personally think all of the characters are phenomenal and it was either gonna be this character or the protagonist from two games before ( Edward Kenway of Black Flag ) but I have a slightly greater preference towards Jacob so !! Behold the living embodiment of chaotic good !! Obvious tws for death , violence , and murder under the cut because this is a series about assassins , but also gang stuff ( and a very small bullying mention in the post-snap portion ) too. I hope this is easy to understand !! 

BEFORE THE SNAP  /  J A C O B   F R Y E .

S’OKAY again I will always try and explain the games’ history and Syndicate’s specific plotline in the simplest of ways - and especially because AC can get very confusing very fast. Thankfully Syndicate is one of the more straightforward entries , but before I get into that , I have to give a basic rundown of the lore since... it will not make sense if you haven’t played any of the games.

A long long long time ago , there were these people called the Isu , and the Isu crafted something that the AC franchise refers to as Pieces of Eden. The Pieces of Eden ultimately has access to control other living beings , and they were extremely powerful.

Flash forward a little bit where you have two forces - the Knights’ Templar and the Assassin Order/Brotherhood - that struggled for these Pieces of Eden for two very different reasons.

The Templars valued order and wanted to use them to control others to achieve a utopia - believing that human corruption & essentially free will were what caused most evils of the world.

The Assassins valued freedom & wanted to preserve the free will of the world , believing that control would do them no good and a mutual understanding under this freedom would be what created a utopia.

So basically , Templars wanted peace via control and Assassins wanted peace via freedom.

Templars wanted the Pieces of Eden to control , and the Assassins knew this was Not Good and often sought to keep the Pieces the fuck away from the Templars ( at least , that’s always how I saw it. )

Of course , because we’re now on like ten main games and seventeen spin-off games it’s OBVIOUSLY way more complicated than that , just that’s the most nutshell way to explain everything. That being said , let’s jump more into Jacob & Syndicate. 

SO JACOB. Jacob is one of the two protagonists of Syndicate , the younger twin to the other protagonist , his sister Evie. They were born in Crawley , raised by their Assassin father , but while Evie was always more . . . into the Brotherhood and assassin ideals , Jacob always was more of a rebel & a free spirit. But nevertheless , he grew up an Assassin like she.

Flash forward years later where the main plot of Syndicate starts , during the Industrial Revolution in 1868 , where the twins are set on heading to London , which is pretty much entirely under control of the Templars ( namely Crawford Starrick and his network ) & their syndicates ( ha ha hA ).

This . . . is sort of where Jacob & Evie separate in terms of goals - Evie’s well-aware of the Pieces of Eden and aims to collect them before the Templars do. However , Jacob’s more so intent on taking down Templars & liberating London from their control. He goes as far as to even starting a gang with his sister - known as the Rooks - to combat the Templar-controlled gang that has London’s boroughs in its grasp known as the Blighters. 

Evie’s basically like “okay we’re going to collect the Pieces of Eden so the templars don’t have them bc Starrick will be more powerful if he has them” but Jacob says to her “fUCK YOU I’M A MAN WHO’S GONNA FREE THE PEOPLE” and. Yeah.

Throughout the game , Jacob’s the twin that exhibits a more impulsive , reckless , yet well-meaning approach to problems - and that sorta kinda . . . means that when he solves problems , he also accidentally makes other problems , and his sister has to clean them up because hey , you killed this Templar leader and angered a bunch of Blighters and we are fucked and Jacob can’t really. Grasp that because he’s too focused on freeing London NOW and taking out Templars NOW and [ Sleeping With Sirens vc ] do it NOW and remember deal with it LATER.

There’s a few cases where Jacob has even so ( both unintentionally and intentionally ) teamed up with Templars because he thought they could help him accomplish his goals in taking London back from them.

He teamed up with Pearl Attaway ( a businesswoman who controlled most of London’s transport and wanted basically a monopoly ) and didn’t find out until later that she was a Templar and had to assassinate her since she was the exact type of controller he wanted to rid London of

But also he struck a deal with Maxwell Roth ( basically a Blighter gang leader who had a shitton of power ) to work with him - but Maxwell saw this as let’s cause as much chaos as possible and fuck the consequences where Jacob saw it as more let’s fix problems by any means necessary and he had to shut down the deal when he saw Roth really just . . . didn’t give a fuck about anyone , including innocents. Jacob’s whole goal was to free and protect the innocents , he just didn’t care how as long as nobody got hurt.

AND THAT’S HONESTLY WHAT I LOVE SM ABOUT JACOB LIKE ... Jacob. Is the epitome of chaotic good like he cares so much about people and protecting the innocents & saving them from control that yeah he doesn’t really . . . consider the consequences of his actions especially when his actions are so chaotic but his primary goal is to free the people of London by taking down Templars and he doesn’t give a fuck how he’s going to do it , he just operates on his code of making sure none of the good people get hurt and the bad guys go down. 

Eventually in the game he did come to realize the errors in his own work and way of thinking - he didn’t think much of the consequences , and therefore caused more of a wreckage than he aimed for. He loved the idea of freedom , but drew the line at absolute careless anarchy like Roth.

Basically be a REBEL not an ASSHOLE.

I love this kid tho like he’s so witty and rebellious and chaotic but also good-hearted and will still help even tho he might complain a lot about it ( looks at Abberline and Darwin ) and he !! He honestly acts before he thinks but I find those characters so refreshing esp bc he’s very emotional and adamant about acting on how he feels and his ideals and it’s honestly so. Idk I really like that about him.

He’s also canonically bisexual and that is something I will never shut up about but if you fucking even tHINK ABOUT ROMANTICIZING ROTH & JACOB’S RELATIONSHIP ( like it’s p much confirmed Roth had a thing 4 Jacob but it’s not. That’s not a Good Thing ) I will personally throw some hands with you. 

...Jacob and Ned however-

SPARE NED?? SPARE NED MA’AM??? 

But honestly anyway TLDR; Jacob is a Victorian chaos-bringer who doesn’t really think much about the shit he does but has a heart of gold he’s just. He’s A Lot. He’s a lil bitch but a good kind of lil bitch.

ALSO ALSO ALSO I AM,,,, not exactly entirely sure where I’m pulling Jacob yet like I could pull him from the end of Syndicate’s main story but also there’s the Jack the Ripper DLC which makes me... feel things, but Jacob’s also significantly older than and a good bit of that DLC’s a bit triggering - long story short, we love and will protect Jacob Frye with our entire lives. 

AFTER THE SNAP  / J A K E   F O W L E S .

So PERSONALITY WISE - Jake isn’t much different from his past self ; the only thing is he never grew up with his twin sister , raised an only child , and because Jacob & Evie are meant to balance each other out , he essentially grew up without an entire part of him he isn’t even aware of.

He was adopted - adopted by a working-class family from London that moved to Castle Town , and that was where Jake was raised.

Now , he was always a bit of a rebel. Always a problem child from the start. There were hundreds and hundreds of cases where he was reported either talking back to teachers , misbehaving in class , sometimes even getting into fights with other kids whether it be they were picking on him or someone else.

And he always liked the thrill of being that rebel - being that miscreant that earned a reputation ; never a mean person , never a bad dude , just somebody who . . . acted out. Acted out for whatever reason - mainly because he never liked the idea of obeying or because he taught the rules were stupid or because the rules meant some people were gonna get inconvenienced. Like , if you see someone getting bullied , why just tell an adult where you can solve the problem right then and there and sock the bully in the jaw ??

That was it. That was Jake’s philosophy.

His parents sent him to multiple hobby & art & educational camps & stuff to try and see if he could find some sort of hobby that would sorta get him out of this ‘problem child’ thing - but it never really worked. He always either got sent home earlier or was asked to never come back because hey , you can’t start a rebellion in the boys’ cabin because you didn’t like the way one of the counselors instructed you about knot tying. 

Never worked out , his parents thought he was smart and would make a brilliant lawyer or doctor or something - but nope , he graduated high school , attempted college but dropped out after two years , and when his parents kicked him out , he crashed with a few friends and made a living on odd jobs before he scored working as a bartender at Dragon’s Breath.

And also . . . both fighting at The Ring and also underground matches for some coin.

Yeah. 

It’s sorta-kinda through this he ALSO became aware of the other people who had to resort to means like this to survive - eventually starting his own gang of people who operated on sorta-kinda Robin Hood like terms - protect the less fortunate , combat the gangs who caused way more problems than he’d like , and also to basically uhhh flip the bird to the rich.

You guessed it - they’re called The Rooks and they’re not really . . . big , they’re just kind of. There. And nobody knows Jake’s the leader but it’s not like he’s really pressed if anyone finds out. 

It’s overall not entirely different from his pre-CT life other than obvious modern differences and LACK OF EVIE sooo. Yeah !!

I’ll hopefully work on a WC page for him soon but as of rn I just kinda want to get some threads going - hope y’all enjoy my dumbass kid xoxoooo

[darlingseraa]

Odyssey || Theory time.

Aight. So. Less than 24h after the official teaser release, and I have a theory on it. Typical, I know lmao. I’ll admit I had a completely different theory about this before I saw all of this.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the splash arts for Odyssey Kayn and Sona for a minute, okay?

Here’s Kayn:

Here’s Sona:

Now. There’s a few things I’ve noticed (thanks to @sushi-okita) about them that make me question what kind of relationship they have with each other in the Odyssey universe.

First up, the golden orb, that strange gold liquid they both wield. For Sona, it originates from her etwahl; for Kayn, it originates where Rhaast’s eye should be on his scythe. 

Their eyes are the same golden color.

They both have golden markings / tribal designs on their faces.

Kayn literally has one dialogue line (in the teaser) refering to an unknown female; “You took what was mine! I will find her, and I-”

Now that that’s out of the way, notice how, on Kayn’s splash art, he seems to absorb the life out of a man’s body. The color of the life-sapping liquid coming out of the corpse’s eyes? 

Gold.

Just like the orb replacing Rhaast’s eye. 

Kayn’s official voicelines for this new skin have also been released (and I can’t tell if he’s totally batshit insane, suffers from a superiority complex or both lol). There are many things I’ve noticed in them:

Both Rhaast and Kayn mention something called ‘aura’.

Rhaast has three voicelines aimed directly to (or refering to) Sona, telling her to ‘open the gates’ (whatever that means) and [here speaking to Kayn] “I told you to leave her ALIVE!” (to which Kayn responds there was a ‘change of plans’) and also “Face the monster you unleashed, Sona!”

Rhaast mentions that ‘gate’ twice, in the aforementioned line directed to Sona, as well as this one; “You should never have opened that gate!”

Kayn has a few lines targeted directly to Sona; “Rhaast can’t save you now, Sona!” along with “At last, Sona, the secrets of the Aura Gate will be mine!” 

Both keep referencing someone called the Templar, which I believe is one way they refer to Sona. Their lines concerning this Templar person are variations of the lines they already voice towards the maven, so it’s only logical to interpret that the Templar is, in fact, Sona.

One of Kayn’s lines in particular may seem very small, but once you understand that the Templar is Sona, this line becomes key to deciphering the lore; “Captain Yasuo, why don’t you tell me where you are hiding the Templar?”

It is also worth noting that Rhaast himself refers to the Dark Star skin line quite a few times, implying that he himself is a Dark Star, and even having one or two voicelines refering to Thresh in that same context.

Based on this, we can assume a few concrete things;

Sona is a priestess / princess tasked with guarding an ancient gate leading to another dimension; her golden orb is the key to said gate.

This other dimension (to which said gate leads) is where Rhaast came from, which is where the Dark Star / Cosmic / Star Guardian skin lines exist, making the Odyssey skin line their own universe (to make things simpler, SGs / Dark Star / Cosmic are NOT in the same dimension as Odyssey).

Aura refers to a person’s life force, which Kayn needs in order to become stronger (and possibly access the gate Sona is tasked with keeping).

When Kayn harvests a person’s aura, he is strengthening both himself and Rhaast. The aura is stored within the golden orb replacing Rhaast’s eye on the scythe.

Yasuo’s crew are, in a way, taking Sona into hiding so that Kayn can never find her and access the Aura Gate.

Opening said gate would unleash the other Dark Stars into the Odyssey universe and cause their end.

If you paid attention, at one point I mentioned Rhaast had told Kayn to keep Sona alive. I think Rhaast knows something Kayn doesn’t; I’ll assume that in order to open the gate, they need a high priestess to do so. My guess is that they need a SPECIFIC aura to open the gate. More on that later.

Keeping all of the previous information in mind (I know there’s a lot, but bear with me, it will all end up making sense), we can make an educated guess as to what the possible story behind this skin line is - or, at least, we can guess as to what kind of role Sona and Kayn actually have within it. Here’s my interpretation of it based on all of the information above;

Sona is a High-Priestess, refered to as the Templar. Keeper of the Aura Gate. Her golden orb is an association of all the previous Keepers’ auras. This means ONLY a Keeper (Templar and / or High-Priestess, all three are the same) can wield this specific orb, and said Keeper is the only person who can access the Aura Gate’s power. In this universe, I believe there is ONLY ONE KEEPER. She originates from the same world as Kayn, hence their shared facial markings and eye color.

I believe Kayn and Sona have a shared past; Kayn speaks to her with such familiarity, calling her by name in most of his voicelines, that it would be illogical to think they don’t have any connection besides Kayn wanting to kill her to gain access to the Aura Gate. They may have been classmates, studying together or training together at some point. They may have been friends, or they may have been more (which would be logical considering Kayn himself in the teaser refers to Sona as ‘what was mine’ (unless that line refers to her orb) and says that he will find her).

In any case, from Kayn’s voicelines we gather that he was an Imperial Soldier before Rhaast came along. I believe that he might have been one of the best, part of the elite if you will, whom the previous emperor of their world had sent through the Aura Gate to retrieve something that might aid them in the conquering of new planets and solar systems. Rhaast was that ‘something’ the emperor had wanted them to get; a weapon forged from the dying heart of a Dark Star, corrupted through and through. 

It was the sentient weapon’s corruption that turned Kayn into this insane, ambitious and power-hungry man, who overthrew the emperor to rule in his stead over the Empire, and desiring even more power had decided to take Sona as his own in order to have access once more to the Aura Gate. This caused the Templar to flee the temple -and eventually, the planet- where the now inaccessible gate resides, finding refuge with Yasuo and his crew after her spaceship was attacked by monstrous creatures following her escape from her home planet. 

Although Sona has found herself surrounded by a band of misfits, she quickly understood that they could all be trusted. They all have their quirks, but they were her new family, people she needed to protect. She blames herself for the trouble she puts them through; because of her, Kayn is now after them. Because of her, Kayn has strayed from his path; because of her, he is no longer human; because of her, he has caused suffering to so many, just to find her.

Ever since she escaped, Kayn and Rhaast have been bent on finding her and have hunted down Yasuo’s ship and crew, meaning to kill those who dared take Sona away from them and, eventually, meaning to kill Sona herself, so she can never take the key to the Aura Gate away from him again.

***

And there you have it! I know, this was a loooong ass post. Have a cookie! 

I’m really excited to see what kind of lore is truly behind this skin line. What do you guys think? I’m hyped as hell. I’m not sure my predictions are accurate but hey, who knows!

I really want to know you guys’ thoughts on this :3

P.S.: For those of you who haven’t heard Kayn’s new voicelines yet and have over 30min of free time to waste, here’s the link to them good lines. Some of them just made me crack up. He throws some SERIOUS shade tho lmao. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnqu0e1758c ♥

[wolgrahas]

✩ OC INFO MEME | MAIA LAVELLAN ✩

tagged by: @drthamen thank u, sammy!! ♡ tagging: anyone who wants to do it ( ˘ ³˘)♥

↳ BASICS

full name: maia lailani lavellan gender: cis female sexuality: bisexual pronouns: she / her

↳ OTHER

family: fenora (biological mother; maia doesn't know anything about her since she was eight), ithelan (father); maia’s parents’ story is romantic and trAGIC AF but it’s too long so i  will write it in another post (つ﹏<)･ﾟ｡ birthplace: in a brothel of a northern city of the free marchers, maia later discovers (thanks to leliana) that that city is called hasmal jobs: after disbanding the inquisition she offers her healing services to poor people in a secret clinic of denerim (tbh i'm not sure about this, we will see what role plays the inky in da4 :3) phobias: losing someone she loves (she doesn't take well the suicidal mission solas means to achieve jsfdgfjsgsj and... i gotta decide if the lavellan clan is killed or not bc i like making my oc’s suffer lol) and the mark (which it finally consumes her entire arm lol) guilty pleasures: kinky sex (ok, real talk: she's shy, looks kinda naïve and in dai she... was a virgin adgfdhgsjfjsdf, but after that she lOVES kinky sex, she rEALLY loves it lmao, she even asks iron bull some advice and sexual toys lmao and she almost dies trying bc of how embarassed she was asking this dsfjdhfjsd) hobbies: reading and playing the lute

↳ MORALS

morality alignment: neutral good sins: lust / greed / envy / gluttony / pride / wrath / sloth virtues: charity / chastity / diligence / humility / justice / kindness / patience

↳ THIS OR THAT

introvert / extrovert / in between organized / disorganized close-minded / open-minded calm / anxious disagreeable / agreeable / in between cautious / reckless patient / impatient outspoken / reserved leader / follower empathetic / unempathetic optimistic / pessimistic traditional / modern hard-working / lazy / in between

 ↳ RELATIONSHIPS

otp: solas x maia (they complement each other so so well  (╥﹏╥) , maia is the heart and solas the brain!! solas is captivated by the naivety of maia, how she finds everything curious and her longing for living her life at her fullest, also she’s quite optimistic! she gives him a lot of hope, and she is always the one who pushes solas to do fun stuff!!! and solas is the one who gives maia a more logical and down-to-earth approach to things. uGHHH I LOVE THEM!!) accepatble ships: leliana x maia (oK let me talk about this; leliana and maia get along amazingly well, tho maia was, at first, scared of her, they slowly, but hard, became best friends. and if this ship was canon all the drama of making her divine bc maia knows this will be better for most people but maybe losing her? magnificent *italian fingers* [tho we all know if leliana is romanced by the warden someone finds her in flagrante with her lover so… gdsfj]) brotp: dorian, cass, varric, sera and leliana :3c notp: c*LLEN x maia, maia understands him but his templar and kirkwall past is a bIG turn off to her and also... maia needs a reALLY stimulating mind and c*llen... he’s too simple-minded m8, he cannot think outside the box (at least what i think)

[dalishious]

Howdy! I’m playing da2 and I just can’t make up my mind on who to romance! I know you’ve said your fave out of the da2 romances is Isabela, but what about everyone else? What are their pros/cons? I don’t mind spoilers! I’m playing as Marian hawke and a warrior, if that helps! I ask you bc out of all the da blogs I follow, I trust your opinion tho most lol

Merrill Pros:

Her romance dialogue is so sweet it’s just basically you and her exchanging compliments most of the time

Gets a whole new magical outfit after moving in with you

Is like the only LI who has no hesitation to say she loves you--(In fact she quite literally shouts it)

Merrill Cons:

Sometimes (or often, if rivalled) her dialogue comes off as uncomfortably worshipping Hawke/self-loathing. Merrill sweetie you are amazing please love yourself

In combination with that Hawke often has the chance to baby her, when she is a fully grown woman with extreme intelligence and independence and doesn’t need you to decide things for her (again, worse if rivalled)

Basically please don’t rival her I really hate it, and support mages

Anders Pros:

Can get really, uh... intense with his #RevolutionRomance

Gains an actual home rather than living in the sewers

One of the two LIs who directly influence an act’s major plot, which adds a bit of... relevancy, I guess? Not sure what word to use. Omph, maybe?

Anders Cons:

I personally wish his romance dialogue wasn’t different depending on if you romance him as a F or M Hawke

Needs to raise his standards--You can say you maybe don’t want a mage to die and he’s like head over heels instantly

Again, please don’t rival him/side with the templars, he will allude to planning on killing himself after everything if you don’t kill him yourself

Fenris Pros:

While he gets this via friendship too I just really like how he finally is able to get close to someone

His romance scenes are soap opera level I s2g

Most of the fandom agrees his voice is the most pleasing to listen to and yes I am adding that as a pro

Fenris Cons:

Ghosts you for like three years--I mean he kinda explains why but still my man WTF let me help you

At least I sometimes get the same vibes I get from Merrill in that he’s almost too engulfed with Hawke, to the point of saying like Hawke’s his only reason to live etc

If you plan on siding with the templars he’s an easier option, but if you plan on siding with the mages it can be a bit more difficult; but definitely not impossible if you just act wisely.

Isabela Pros:

I will stand by my opinion that she has the best romance but that’s a lot because I absolutely love “Oops I accidentally love you” stories

Not positive on this, but it at least feels like she has the most opportunities to actually flirt with her

One of the two LIs who directly influence an act’s major plot, which adds a bit of... relevancy, I guess? Not sure what word to use. Omph, maybe?

Isabela Cons:

She will leave the game permanently at the end of Act 2 if you’re not careful; I suggest looking up how to keep that from happening

Uh...

I’m sorry I am wracking my brain but I can’t think up two more cons ATM

Sebastian Pros:

Is really the only romance where I personally think is okay if rivalled, though I still absolutely prefer friendship

For a man who claims to have been quite the party-goer he is awfully flustered when flirted with and it’s v cute

Is the only LI to tell Hawke literally everything--I like how the DA:2 characters all have their own things going on outside of Hawke’s life but sometimes it can get frustrating when they chose to keep things from you, because of course as a player you are curious, but Seb has no hesitation to involve Hawke with anything

Sebastian Cons:

I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s a DLC somehow, but you cannot flirt with anyone else or his romance won’t register

Definitely has the least amount of LI content

You will have to kill Anders unless you want to break up with him (or mod the game)

[moontheoretist]

Circles of Magi - Discussion

I dunno what happened, but I couldn't reblog post about Circles, so I had to create separate post to add something from myself.

@darktemplar84 Don't forget that Felix was not good at magic and we all know what happens to mages in Southern Thedas, when they are not good enough to pass the Harrowing. They go through tranquility or fail the Harrowing and are killed (despite the fact that there may be a way to save them). While in the same time in Tevinter, mage who cannot pass the Harrowing CAN BECOME A SCHOLAR and go to the University of Orlais! It's exactly the case of Minaeve in DAI. If Circles weren't teared down in DAI, she would be made Tranquil, because she was not good enough at magic to pass the Harrowing, but thanks to the Rebellion, she could become kind of the scholar for the Inquisitor. (Vivienne says that Breach is dangerous because it increases chances of possesion, and I cannot argue with that, but as long as mage feels safe, like Minaeve, there is no possesion. It means that possesion can be avoided. I cannot really recall any information about abominations in the Inquisition, despite Cullen and Vivienne being so sure that there will be problem with that, because game doesn’t give this information in the first place). [I like to think that there were none, and that Cullen and Vivienne were utterly surprised.]

About noble families: Warden Amell were noble once. But when their magic manifested, which ended with them being taken to the Circle, they lost the right to hold the title (Connor is in the same boat here). But then if they become a Warden they suddenly can become someone important and in their case it's mostly because Warden's are independent and nobody can tell them what they can or what they can't do, even the Chantry, so when Wardens are granted the right to the Arlat of Amaranthine, nobody really cares that Warden is a mage in the end. Hawke from the other hand could be considered as a noble from Amell family, but once again, nobody really cares that they are a mage and I think that it's due to the fact that lore has too many plotholes and too many cases of individual mages being treated good or being treated bad, or that it’s the side effect of the situation, in which Bioware had to come up with good explanation why Hawke can hold an estate in Kirkwall and be a Champion, despite being an apostate mage, but failed miserably.

There is something wrong with the Circles in the lore. Once they are good, once they are bad. I was literally thinking that Ferelden Circle was ok, untill I went into basement where I found a lot of blood and demons... and I started to wonder... why they are there? I never played Awakening, but I know what Anders is saying about Circles and we should really reconsider the point of view, when we are talking about Circles. Some mages had more freedom and more chances to become important, than the others. I dunno how Vivienne's Circle looked like, but I try to imagine, and I sometimes wonder how many mages failed where she succeded. She holds power and lives better life than other mages, because she outsmarted the system. But still she is pro-Circle, because she sees it as institution, which could work better. 

I also can imagine it as something good... but I cannot imagine it in the same way as Vivienne can. She doesn't see flaws in the Chantry, and I see too many of them. That's why for me Circles would work if they were separated from the Chantry and would be treated as private schools. People still would be "locked up" there, but they would at least have vacation and could go see their families or invide their families inside. And atmosphere would be different without Templars always watching. I cannot imagine school with such security. I would not really be able to focus on learning if somebody would watch my every move. It's unnerving. (And if someone thinks that being scared helps mages, then... no, it doesn't, it makes it even harder for them to pass Harrowing). 

If we want to have Harrowing in the end (I don't, because there are better ways to test mages, than forcing them to deal with the demon), then it should not be something, which nobody knows about. Ferelden Circle mages were afraid of Harrowing, and they were constantly talking about mages dissapearing and never coming back, which reffers to them failing the Harrowing. Nobody knows what it is, and when Irving gives you advices in DAO, Gregoir basically stops him from "helping you". How fucked up is that? Tevinter version is probably more like our exams at the end of high school. We all don't like them, but we at least know how they look like and we are prepared to take them.

In the end Circles end as some kind of prisons like @notsosecretsolasobsession said. They are not Hogwart, there is too many things, which make them different than Hogwart, but also a lot of things which make them different from one another as well. Kirkwall was the worst one and Ferelden is treated as one of the best ones, at least by one of the in-game character, who wrote the codex entry about Circles. Even he noticed that something is wrong with the system and that it should be fixed. (And because codex entries are written by Bioware writers, we know that Bioware see the problem too).

@morealivethanvenser has a point here that Circles were not meant to be prisons, but after some time they were forced to become ones. I still can argue that they were like prisons before, because I cannot imagine that taking children from their families and shipping them somewhere, without even letting children to contact their parents later is a good thing. And when they are adults a lot of them may not want or not be able to reach their families. Anders would not want to see his father after what he did and I cannot imagine that his mother stayed with the guy after that. Revka Amell dissapears after Fausten Amell dies and father of Warden Amell dissapears too with the rest of the children, so there is no way to contact them. Some like Finn have the opportunity to contact their families, but we shouldn’t really treat it as a norm. Because with the Circles there is no norm. 

The only norms, which I see are the flaws in the system itself. Huge ones or minor ones, depending on the Circle. But for me all system is flawed, because mages are treated like the only ones, which can be possesed... and it’s not really true. They are more likely to be (statistically), but everybody else can be too. Does it mean that we should lock them up and make them feel ashamed of who they are or treat them like the ticking bombs, who can become monsters at any second...? I think that it’s not really a good way to teach someone, that they have to learn to control their magic. 

But Chantry made it possible, because they interpret Chant of Light as they see fit... and do I have to add that one of Chantry Sisters NPC in DAI actually says that mages were beaten in the Circles, and that mages were hiding their bruises, so nobody would know, how they were treated? She never stated in which Circle she was, though. I can only assume that it was not Kirkwall Circle.

@laurelsofhighever Wanna add something to this?

Links to the most interesting answers:

Connor’s Noble Title

Nobles and Commoners

Not Intended to be Prisons

Circle Reform is Needed

Harrowing

You can go outsite as long as you have important friends

There was also the post about Templars, where someone said that they are unfairly treated as bad people by the fandom, and this person has a point, but in the same time Cole has a point too, when he says that a lot of Templars abuse mages to feel better. The good Templars tho... why they always end so poorly? Losing people they love (Thrask). Being addicted to the point of no come back (Samson) and being tortured by desire demon (Cullen). 

We cannot also forget that Templars even when they see that not all mages are bad and they are not bad themsemselves, still do nothing to stop the bad things from happening (and for the victim of abuse, the person who does nothing to stop abuse, is the same as the person, who abuses them), because they were brainwashed into thinking that mages should be locked down, because they are potential monsters. 

Cullen never fully recovered from his previous attitude, he still is afraid of mages and not feel safe with them around. It’s understandable after what happened to him, but... it’s bad to exclude someone, who you love and treat them as exception of the rule (Cullen still can love a mage), while in the same time thinking about other mages as potential monsters. It’s the problem. I would even say that it’s a social issue in Thedas. 

Mages are treated as if they were not people by the society in Southern Thedas, while in the same time elves are treated (by the same society) as knife-eared brutes, which are below everyone else (and quess who doesn’t caaaree about that, yes, the Chantry doesn’t care). Templars are made addict to the lyrium by the Chantry... mages are treated like an embodiment of the sin, which created the Blight and elves... elves are erased from the history of the Chantry so Chantry could treat them as lower class citizens. 

Chantry is the big bad here, really.

[rozunderpressure]

Yes, but you can argue that there are 2 types of people, by this point, that want the Modern day story line gone:

1 - People who think its boring (because honestly, they are, even if you are invested, Ubi really sucks at integrating these to the plot) and would rather just play a history game, which is their right, but yeah, it kinda shows you enjoy the games, but don't care about them that much.

2 - People who got REALLY INVESTED into it, and were looking forward to where it was going only to see it dropped like nothing...

I am 2

My investment in the modern day plot was lost recently, because it feels like UBISOFT does not care about it, it feels like THEY are willing to throw it to trash as soon as something they think will sell better comes along, even you admit that! So, IMHO, why bother?

Like, Juno has been this threat that has been build up from almost the start of the series, all these clues and tidbits pointing out to her wanting to come back to life, enslave humanity again and to the only to defeat her being to unite the Templars and Assassins in such a way that they synthesized, put their BS aside for what really mattered: the good of humanity! It was going to be awesome!

And then they didn't! Then they just-- Comic book... Because Ubisoft likes to pretend AC is a multi-media Franchise, despite the fact the rest of the world disagrees with them, but oh boy, won't they insist on that?

And then, after that they ask you to be invested in Layla, which is super hard after they kill, not only Desmond, but the PLOT he was the "main character" off, but we try-- And then they kill her too!

My problem with getting invested in the modern day is not the fact I was bored by the segments in the game (tho I was, again, really badly integrated and would often cut into the action of the game, but sometimes in-animus moments have that feel too, like the prison in AC3), its the fact they NOW MAKE ME FURIOUS! I replayed a lot of the games recently and every time I had to do modern day stuff, I got pissed, because I remembered "Oh yeah, this is pointless isn't it? Juno is just going to get killed in a comic book, so why bother? Then Layla is just going to die so some dude we just got introduced to can rehash bits of the Juno plot, but from the perspsective of the Sage and with a son this time, so why bother again?"

So yeah, If we had this talk between Syndicate and Origins (that got me so invested in the modern day plotline I STARTED WRITING A FREAKING FANFIC THAT WAS LARGELY ABOUT A THIRD PARTY HELPING DEFEAT JUNO! Fuck, I am still writing it, now, at least in part to let my frustration with THIS out), I would have 100% AGREED!! Like... "You can't take the modern day storyline, not now, not when we are getting so close with the confrontation with Juno!"

But now....... Why bother? Like, the series don't even feel like AC anymore, so I rather just play an anthology of historical fiction games, than go through this "get invested in this plot we'll abandon at the drop of a hat please!" stuff again...

Whenever someone says, “Assassin’s Creed should get rid of the Modern Day storyline” I immediately discount their opinion on the series.

[et-dracones]

Important post bc now I’m desperate for more Inquisitor Cailan:

Most likely been in hiding for the past 10 years, letting everyone believe he was “dead”. This is especially the case with Alistair as king

He trusts his brother as king, and if Anora is the Queen alongside Alistair than he trusts them both even more

Loghain is 100% definitely the Warden Contact instead of Stroud. It makes everything ten times better tbh bc Cailan is still Bitter.

Despite the bitterness tho, he still sees Loghain as a second father tbh and would end up giving him a huge as hug and maybe crying a little. Only after he’s punched him tho.

At first he would hide his identity. He adopts the last name Trevelyan and even goes so far as to cut off all his hair hoping no one will recognize him. It probably works too. Everyone just thinks he looks eerily similar to the late King Cailan. 

His cover is almost blown at Redcliffe because Anora recognizes him. He just winks at her and she decides to keep her mouth shut.

And then they get to Crestwood, and he just straight up socks Loghain and that’s when the secret comes out lmao.

Side note: totally stole this idea from Cailan’s little bro, Aiden aka @kiingbound also Squid is awesome everyone go follow Cailan’s little shit of a brother

Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts would be a blast with Cailan tbh. He and Sera would sure as shit being pulling pranks throughout the palace. Celene herself would probably even get involved because Cailan would drag her into it.

He’d most definitely choose the “community service” option for Florianne’s punishment. Yes, Cullen. He does want her damn head on a stick. 

Cailan would have the HUGEST crush on Cassandra tbh. He loves a woman that could easily kill him without batting an eye.

Also probably at least sleeps with Bull bc who doesn’t want to ride the bull tbh

Picks the mages over the templars. Probably leaves Hawke in the fade... That one would be a tough choice for him though. He really wouldn’t want to leave Loghain in the fade, because he’s practically his father. But he also likes Hawke and would probably befriend them at Skyhold, so wouldn’t want to leave them either. Still ends up doing that because he cares too much for Loghain... and is also afraid Anora would find and kill him if he left Loghain in the fade lmao.

Celene stays as Empress. 

Chooses to save Bull’s men. Is really glad for that come Trespasser.

After he defeats Corypheus, the people of Fereldan probably try to get him to become king again. He refuses tho, because he believe’s Alistair is doing a great job as king. 

Leliana would become divine, bc Cailan agrees with her the most of the three. He also probably really doesn’t like Vivienne anyway rip

Anyway, I just really love this verse of his now and if anyone wants to write it with me hmu thank you

[iimmcrtalis-archive]

DA verse

a summary post of all my active muses verse(s) in dragon age because i’m f EELING IT BOYS. except terry for rn bc it’ll be Hard. one day. gonna try and go in a from least knowledge bout their verse to extensive knowledge of ‘em so. ayy

this is a pretty long post i apologize to those on mobile!!

Nova; mage(???), human ( ? ), possibly a distant noble

probably a mage? because blue space magic is her jam. though she’s actually more of a combat & tech. she was like well rounded in that regard so i’m considering iunno??? battlemage maybe w/ lockpicking who knows. she’s a sneaky mage that can stab u real good.

would probably also assume she’s pretty good as inquisitor because she would treat it as her role and thing she still has to bare and takes it seriously. like nova is no nonsense as inquisitor but absolute nonsense when she’s not playing that role lmao. 

Morgan; mage?? human af ye. defo a noble blood t BH. 

i unno man. iunno. is he a mage? yeah probably. would he be a legit battlemage + arcane warrior? probably. Would i say he uses a real sword? pro b ab ly. like listen he’s a beefy mage who wears normal armor and probably looks like a fckn non mage but bOOM SUDDENLY LIGHTNING FROM HIS HAND W H AT 

iunno he’s a mage and he’s aggressive as FUCKKKK. aggro as fuck. probably sides withhh iunno both he’d want both and think it’s wasted potential to only have one lmao. iunno he’s hard to figure out man. he’d ultimately probably be like templars because actual ppl who know how to fight. but also wouldn’t wanna condemn the mageS??? so who knows who knows. 

anyways he probably likes blackwall and the iron bull and viv and cass?? and just ye. chills w/ them a lot probably. probably would flirt w/ cass tho god. butw/e no he’s uhhhh real aggressive as a fckn inquisitor like every body getting beheaded. except a few probably.. he would probably make uh... whats his name... tranquil tbh. worse fate than death that yes he would wish on his enemies bc otherwise they get what they want & too risky otherwise. 

Igne; old af elf, probably an assassin combo w/ magic??

like listen if you tell me that they can’t be both ima fckn punt u bc really that’s dumb. defeats the point of multiclassing in the fantasy genre of g am es. anyways really tho they’re old. old as balls. probably? iunno. probably served like... andruil for a while or somethin! got a lil lil corrupted but didn’t want it and wanted freedom so they were like FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUTTIE 

how’d they live? no idea. not a single clue bc i just don’t know jackshit bout ancient elf shit anymore (when did i ever) but honestly. it’s probably a thing right? old af elves everywhere. but no no they’d probably even annoy sera bc like they’re literally?? nonsense. violent af nonsense. hanging off a roof with a fckn potato in their mouth & lookin ready to murder. 

it’s a look™  but nah thinkin that u hhh corruption shit is probably what gave them a red eye ayyy

inquisitor igne is like dagger eyes at solas but doesn’t snitch on him ever not even once. she’s got his back man. she’d be like cool i’ll plaY BOTH SIDES SUre. sure. no mercy run on ppl tho god 

EVELYN / ISENE; old af elf. got that fckn combo again

it’s a theme really, combo classes. all my muses? multiclassed fuckers.  for a detailed everything, please refer to her old blog bc this is gonna be a stupid summary of it so ayyy.

old as dicks dude. lost her arm in the rebellion, against the rebellion. served elgar’nan because he fits her the most tbh. still sort of serves him i guess. like if he showed up she wouldn’t hesitate to follow his orders is what i mean here. otherwise she keeps up the facade of being a former dalish elf mercenary. and definitely doesn’t shy away from admitting she’s got magic. never calls herself a mage because  like lmao 

she has a fckn big ol sword she carries around one handed? and if ur like UR JUST A MAGE she’s gonna use said big ol sword to chop ur head off. not a fan of modern mages tho lmao. at all. like not a lot of sympathy for them. but she would also just kick a circles door in and be like cool leave gtfo you weaklin lil fucks jfc go learn somethin. 

would fight solas in a denny’s parking lot at 2am if she knew jack shit. but she really doesn’t so she’s like ur weird and i dont trust you  butyeah lm ao

Eludysia; ngl i unno if she’s old old but she’s Old. Old seer lady. 

honestly i think she’s not gonna have much of a da verse in general but it exists enough that i feel like i should cover it here. but essentially she’s an old elf seer in rivain. leader of a port side town. No chantry or qunari around its a lot of elves tho. refugees and what not from kirkwall and stuff. 

i unno if she’s an ancient elf but i know she’s old. like real old. so who knows

if she is ancient she probably woulda been like a priestess to ?? falon’din or dirthamen??? because seer shit but like even in a current state she’s fairly devoted to on e o f them or both? probably both lmao. so it’s w/e. 

she’s the former keeper of the clan revas got sent to, which is where revas’ mom is also from and how she gets to that clan. but she was keeper of the clan for like.. a long time like a long time. like that bald fuck from da:o  but without plaguing people with a curse. iunno how she did it but magic and better than that shit. 

more important if revas is inquisitor because lmao she’d probably be like.. welp im gonna come guide you?? probably.   shit she’s probably like emerald knights old tho shit but no fuckin!!! probably comes to be an advisor. 

i think if u go revas as commander/advisor or inquisitor in a thread eludysia’s probs gonna show up and be like sup  but otherwise she’s mainly just a contact in rivain for info and resources!! no special quest or anything u can just contact her for stuff. 

Warren; half-elf, half-qunari. big man w/ a bow.

&& a thick af accent let’s be real here. 

i haven’t made a post about his shit yet so! this one might be a lil longer!! 

grew up in/around starkhaven. in an alienage somewhere really! but he’s got that starkhaven accent. probably just fumbled his way there because honestly he got fucking ditched by his people and has no idea who his parents are lmao. just knows his mom died during child birth and he was fuckin cursed essentially via his?? clan or something. that qunari bit of him is real obvious as his horns grew out and probably had a harsh life in an alienage. 

because he’s not an elf. but he’s not human. and he’s not a qunari. so he’s just. him. 

eventually falls in with some ppl who teach him to steal. so he does a lot and then gets busted and they fckn break his horns off and chop his ears!!! and throw him the fuck out. as you do. but they taught him to use a bow so he’s good with that. and knives. good at close quarters and a long range.

gets better with a bow. real top knotch stuff. ends up in a mercenary crew (same one as qunari inquisitor? probably.) enjoys his merc lifestyle ya know has a good time killin shit 

anyways. companion warren is p much like ‘Strength & force.’ because he has no tact and doesn’t care about politics. like one day i’ll have his approval / disapproval shit. but today is not that day.

but the same applies to his inquisitor shit. he’s fucking brutal as an inquisitor. cares about the little people but FUCK the rich. takes the well for himself ( tho if i would also say revas is there bc i can and she’d take it) but generally just!! give him power and let him kill shit!! that’s all he cares about. tho he wouldn’t kill samson or calpernia bc he doesn’t see them as enemies or villains truly? just pawns in a big scheme and he’d probably stare corypheus in the face and be like get fucked you saggy fuck 

he’s great, great guy. 

Revas: Keeper. Dreamer. Dalish elf. 

literally like most people know Revas’ Dragon Age basics!! but if you don’t i’ll just direct you to her old blog, so you know what’s up.  i’ll put it into a summary the best i can tho! 

Backstory: short and simple? #fucked.  expanded? she was born to the lavellan clan to one of the head hunters & warriors. ended up having magic so she was sort of training to become second, or first, till her moms old clan was like hey we need a new first so uhhhh help us out. and they traded some goods and revas went on her way. ended up being a fucked up situation where the previous first was murdered by two clanmates who eventually tried ( and did) murder revas but she came back bc lmao spirit help & ended up killing them and leaving for her actions.

Dragon Age: Awakening:  full page about it Takes place shortly after this event happened. she lived on her own for awhile, protecting people as much as she could from darkspawn during the blight. ends up going to the wardens because someone doesn’t appreciate her help since she’s a Mage.     The choices made by the warden in regards to her effect how she becomes a warden and the rest of the timeline. Sort of a branch off feel. highly recommend taking a look at the page and also this post. 

DA 2:  If not in the Awakening verse, Revas travels around to the clans. becoming a traveling keeper & helping the clans the best she can. As well as finding ruins and exploring man memories from lost objects. Eventually finds her way to Kirkwall to actually speak with Merrill. But some other shenanigans play out and some stuff goes down. Ends up helping in the fight at the end and leaving with Zevran ( @allurfavesrqueer‘s zevran only lmao. )

DA:I     Companion: Shows up in fereldan with some tree peeps. gets some elvhen shit. offers her services to the inquisition bc that’s what her spirit told her to do. and ya know real fucky. shares some approvals as solas but usually has some pretty contrasting opinions on things! Will defo take on the role of like older sibling or sibling figure with the inquisitor if they’re close enough. Be kind to elves & mages and you’re good.  ( also she’s an option to take the well if the inquisitor doesn’t want it) 

   Advisor: Takes up an offer by the inquistor to become an advisor which is more or less her using her network with the elves around the countries to do certain objectives and what not. acts a bit like an ambassador for the elves & mages in the meetings to give them a voice and remind the human board of trusteeeess that they’re fucking not the only ones around :)) 

  Commander: Mainly with @desiderrium‘s Cullen. Basically Revas takes over for Cullen? at his request kinda because she’s like what the fuck you’re whAT. and gets pissed at everyone else for keeping him on when he’s Not Okay even if she’d rather kick his teeth in 99% of the time. why revas take over? because she’s actually p fuckin qualified, gestures vaguely towards being a first and the advisor au. like she knows how to lead ppl so ayy. 

  Inquisitor: Same ish backstory happens except her parents died to the blight and she left the clan for the other and ye same shit happens. but the clans ask her to go check shit out for them and shes like of course and gets caught up in the mess so. 

ALRIGHTY !! 

so that got long but yea!! hopefully this is a more condensed version of stuff and good for reference later. 

[deeafrotailmisstress]

Just finished Dragon Age: Inquisition for the first time as a hard-ass female Dwarf Inquisitor and I had loads of fun! (didn’t really care for the shit-ton of side quests tho xD)

I thought that we had the Trespasser DLC on our PS4, but turned out we didn’t and now imma have to wait longer cuz DAMMIT I wanna have one last conclusive feels session with the companions I grew to love!

Below are just a few of my opinions about the gameplay that are just random thoughts and me being like ‘...it’s not just me thinkin this right? Or maybe someone thought about this better than me’ (Be warned! TONS of Spoilers ahead! SPOILEY SPOILING SPOILEROONIEEESSS. ...okay u have been warned)

Okay so the Well of Sorrows quest? Why do so many of the companions get butt-hurt if you drink from it? For my character, it would make more sense for her to drink it. Well of giant knowledge and power that can be used to stop Corypheus but comes at an unknown price that you don’t know of, okay I get the risk. But my character always had a slight stubborn and martyr-ish streak to her, so I knew she wouldn’t care as much about the risk to meet the ends. Plus even if you were worried about the risk, I wouldn’t really trust all the knowledge and power with a total stranger in a string bikini who claims that she is TOTALLY gonna benefit our side just because we had a laugh at a ball. Like okay SHE is gonna take the risk instead of you, but at the same time you could possibly lose a big power bonus against your ultimate enemy! Buuut, then there is the argument that because you are the only hope against stopping the rifts and your companions don’t want to risk anything happening to you, so I guess there’s that.

Oh and DON’T get me started on how much Solas’s bitching to me about not doing the rituals at the temple grinded my gears.

…

Okay he doesn’t bitch A LOT, he only makes like one or two snide comments, and I’m talkin about this dialogue section when the sentinels die (I’m quoting from rough memory here, so it ain’t exact):

Solas: Such a waste of life, all these elves dying for their cause

My dwarf: You’re right...it’s a shame what happened here

Solas: well then maybe you should have done the rituals instead of slaughtering them

like BITCH. I MADE ONE MISTAKE. SOOOOOORRYYYYY.

In all seriousness though, I get where he’s coming from, but from my character’s perspective: one of the most powerful generals to Corypheus’s army was escaping with a TON of red templars, going off to do god knows what, maybe cutting off another quicker access to the well! Not to mention that we were in a hurry and soldiers were dying out there the longer we took. But, Morrigan and Solas wanted my dwarf to fuck around more in the temple to pay respect by doing the correct rituals to a place that my dwarf didn’t relate to and wasn’t all too worried about it in the moment. But yeess, I get that if you HAD done the rituals, you would have gained the Sentinels as an ally and my character not doing the rituals was probably a mistake and I’ll accept that. ….but I ain’t going to accept anymore of your fuckin shit Solas.

Look Bioware. Maybe you won’t release a patch where Varric is romance-able. Maybe you won’t have him feature in the next Dragon Age, let alone make him a romance option in the next installment. Maybe you’ll NEVER make him a romance option. Fine. I have accepted this fate. But dammit does it make me hope for a dwarf romance option in the next one even moooooree.

My dream team was always either Varric, Dorian and Iron Bull or Varric, Dorian and Sera. I loved the banter between them, plus Iron Bull’s a hella good tank.

Varric is my fave companion. I don’t know if you guys could tell.

I made Cole more human. Come on! It was either you told Cole to COMPLETELY forgive the templar you tortured him and left him to starve in a tower and totally forgot him years later. Uh. No. You don’t just let an asshole get away with that kinda shit with no consequences. Or, let him confront that asshole and work through his emotions...of violence...and...murder. Okay, so the second option doesn’t sound as good when I say it, but hey, it’s not like I was going to let him kill the asshole anyways! Plus I really didn’t like the condescending vibes Solas was giving when implying that Cole is ABOVE being a human or mortal....but since I know what happens in the DLC...I know why.

In case you guys couldn’t tell, Solas was my least fave companion. xD

...but dammit if he isn’t a good party healer.

I couldn’t do any romance options because I was sharing the PS4 with my siblings and I sure as hell am not going through a romance with them in the same room *coughcough*. BUT. If I had the choice, I would have went with Iron Bull or Blackwall for male romance and Josephine or Sera for female romance. Josie’s just...the cutest! <3

….okay fine, AND Scout Harding. I’m a sucker for freckles okay!

Kiiinda regret not letting Briala take over at Halamshiral, because Elves have already been through enough shit and they need some power. But to be honest, she didn’t really seem like a stable option? Like how everybody described her connections to power made them seem really flimsy at best, plus Celene was still a good pick to keep in power and she likes you anyways from the get-go! But yeah, still would have liked to see what would happen if Briala had some control.

The scenery you guys. Oh. My. GOD. THE SCENERY IS BREATHTAKING!!

I cannot tell you guys how pumped I was the first time I took down a dragon in Inquisition. I fuckin immersed myself on that shit, I had mountain dew beside me, my dragon hunting music was on, and I was yellin’ in VICTORYYY!!

...but I also kinda felt bad cuz...Dragons are cool and I like nature and shit and yeah, I only did it twice. ...the second time was because the dragon in the hinterlands pissed me off when I was a low-level exploring and it just came outta nowhere and fuckin fire-ball shanked me.

Fave female character in the game has to be Vivienne. Hands down. She’s just the ultimate BAMF.

Omg be glad I’m not putting my opinions on the whole ‘Mages and Templars’ conflict. I would have a friggin FIFTEEN PAGE ESSAY on that shit, but honestly, I’m glad with my ending for the mages, what with them going off on their own with their own College of Magi. I honestly didn’t give any fucks when the disapprovals rolled in about me freeing them ‘cause...just fuck off with that shite. Mages been through enough shit and y’all companions expect me to NOT free ‘em? Nah fam.

...aaand yup. Dee rambles are pointless and shitty, but at least this is the first time letting some random funny shit off my chest and it feels nice! xD

[thiswasnotscripted]

I’ll keep you save

Fen'an had known, that it was a bad idea, even before he accepted.

They did come back from Emprise du Lion this afternoon, where they had fought Red Templars, froze off their feet and managed to ditch the many dragons that had made this area their new home. All their caution had been useless in the end; one of these huge reptiles had blocked their path and the fight had been inevitable.

While Fen'an had been glad to come out of the fight alive, the Iron Bull had been pumped. Proudly he had carried the massive skull back to Skyhold and even the fact that he h would have to give his trophy to Helisma, so she could examine it, couldn't bring him down. Spontaneously he did invite the whole party into the tavern under the pretext that the alcohol would surely warm up their frozen bones.

Fen'an had known, that it was a bad idea. But now he was here with the Iron Bull, between them to mugs filled with a beverage that tasted like kerosene, and regretted his decisions.

Lavi and Sera did gave up long ago. While Lavi still tried to sit upright and probably promised herself never to drink again, Sera already lay under the table, snoring peacefully.

„Hey Boss, you're giving up?“, asked Bull grinning and was greatly entertained by the hard-drinking Inquisitor. The elf smiled deviously.

„Never.“

He felt hot, sick and the world had started to spin around him minutes ago, but he would have never admitted that. Not before the qunari would declare his defeat and would admit that he wasn't able to drink the Inquisitor under the table.

Reluctantly he reached for the mug in front of him and chugged down the bitter liquid, which the qunari dared to call alcohol. Bull did the same and reached for the now almost emptied bottle.

„You know, it's no shame to give up now.“, he tried again. „You are an elf after all, and elves are known to be quiet the lightweights.“

Fen'an shook his head and tried to cover up a cough.

„This may be true, but this is about honor!“, he said and frowned. The alcohol burnt in his throat ad gave him a voice of a chain smoker. Heroically he lifted his fist. „I am the Inquisitor and I have a reputation to lose.“

„As you say, Boss.“, Bull laughed and refilled the mugs. They had emptied the bottle now and Bull was almost relieved. He didn't know how much longer the stubborn elf would be able to sit upright.

Fen'an emptied the mug one last time and Bull did the same.

„Ha!“, Fen'an shouted triumphantly and leaped up. For a moment it looked like he would fall backwards over the bench behind him, but he caught himself and pressed his hands into his hips. „The bottle is empty, I am still standing... you owe me 20 Sovereigns.“

Bull looked up to him and smiled amused. He had to give him that, the elf could hold his liquor. When he had tried that stuff the first time, it had needed less to knock him out. Fen'an seemed satisfied with his victory and didn't noticed the person, that had just entered the room. Dorian had been searching for the Inquisitor for quiet awhile now and seemed to be relieved to have finally found him.

„There you are!“, he said and came closer. „And I feared, I had to search whole Skyhold for you... Are you okay? You look pale...“

„Dorian, we talked about this.“, Fen'an reminded him and smiled fondly. „If I go out in the sun, I reflect its light. That's just my natural skin tone.“

The mage wasn't convinced and reached for Fen'ans chin.

„Your eyes are all glassy.“, he murmured and felt his forehead. „Either you are feverish or you just drank too much.”

Fen'an grinned and took Dorians hands off his face. He held one of them to calm the mage and gestured into the direction of the table.

“Bull just lost 20 Sovereigns, after he betted that he could drink me under the table.”, he explained proudly and beamed at the mage. Dorian grimaced though when he saw the empty bottle.

“Did you drink a whole bottle of that?”, he asked shocked and shot Bull a judging look. He knew this brew too well and was honestly surprised that nobody died of it yet. “Are you insane?”

“Well, actually that was the second...”, Fen'an wanted to say, but quickly continued, before Dorian could scold him further. “ I am fine. You see? Still standing!”

As if to emphasize his statement, Fen'an started to stumble the exact second and Dorian had to catch him before he would end up on the floor. Fen'an threw his arms around the man and steadied himself.

“Have I ever told you, that you smell really nice?”, he murmured into his chest and the mage looked down in confusion. “Is that lavender?”

“Ah... yes. It's a new soap I ordered in Orlais that arrived this morning.”, he said quietly. “I thought you might like it.”

“I knew it...”, the elf murmured and nearly started to purr. Dorian seemed a bit overwhelmed and suddenly realized that they both were still in the tavern for everyone to see. Bull watched the couple amused and lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, time to get you into bed!”, Dorian said eventually and shoved to elf to the door. “Josephine kills us both if you show up at the wart able hung over.”

Bull couldn't help himself and threw a comment at them, that made Dorian, already redfaced because of the unexpected burst of affection from his amatus, blushing even harder. Cursing he urged the elf out of the tavern.

The cold night air seemed to sober Fen'an up. He jumped from one stone to the next, babbled happily about everything and nothing and fulfilled almost every cliche one could have about the Dalish. Dorian would have thought of this view as endearing, if he didn't fear for the elf to stumble the next moment and break his neck.

Eventually he managed to bring the Inquisitor safe into his quarters. At least he managed it until they came to the stairs in front of his rooms, where Fen'an suddenly let himself fall down and decided not to move any farther. The effect of the alcohol seemed to show his full effects just now.

“Don't tell me you want to sleep here.”, Dorian sighed. “Just this morning you told us how happy you are to not have to sleep in a tent covered in snow anymore.”

“But everything is moving.”, Fen'an whined and started to pout. “If I get up now I will fall and die... what do you think Josephine will do then?”

Dorian laughed. The Inquisitor used to complain a lot when sober, but now he had turned into the child the most saw in him. It was quiet adorable, really.

The mage crouched down in front of him and sighed.

“Well, then I'll have to carry you to your bed.”, he said eventually and opened his arms for Fen'an to crawl into.”Cant' have you freeze to death out here, can I?”

The elf clinged to him like a monkey and burrowed his face in Dorians neck. The mage couldn't bite back a smile. If Mother Giselle could only see them now... she would probably imply the evil Tevinter mage tried to kidnap the Inquisitor.

Under minor inconveniences he managed to get the key out of the elf's pockets and opened the massive wooden door with a well-aimed kick. Fen'an giggled about something Dorian couldn't understand.

With a final strike of effort he threw him onto the bed and promptly followed him unexpectedly. He shot the elf, who still clinged to him, a questioning look.

“I see you are entertained?”, he said but couldn't fight a smile at the sight of the clingy elf. Usually the Inquisitor rather bit the hand of anyone getting to close than to be touched and even with Dorian it was hard for him to ask for physical affection. His current state was just adorable.

“Very.”, Fen'an said happily and toyed with the mages hair. Dorian followed the touch. “Please stay.”

“Don't you think that'll get a bit uncomfortable, in that position?”, Dorian noted and tried to bring distance between them. Until now he had only entered the Inquisitors bet to... well, to attend certain activities one tends to do with a lover. Not once he had stayed, had left before Fen'an could get the chance to throw him out. The elf had never tried to. He had accepted his decision, upset but understanding.

Fen'an took a deep breath, furrowed his brows and eventually let go of Dorian. He scooted to the headpiece of the bed, as far away as possible and pulled his knees to his chest.

“I am sorry...”, he said quietly and avoided to look into Dorians eyes. “I... I don't want to rush you.”

“But?”, Dorian pressed and watched as Fen'an, still avoiding his gaze, picked at his pillows.

“... I am afraid to be alone.”, he said eventually and Dorian realized.

The sudden urge for contact wasn't a result of the alcohol and the risky drinking behavior had not just been a bet. Fen'an was scared.

He was scared to seem weak, scared to be vulnerable and alone with his thoughts. Scared that others would see just how afraid he was.

What had happened after they left the Winter palace had affected him more than he had shown. The scars on his neck, that glimmed faintly in the dark, did heal. The scars on his soul didn't.

Dorian sat down next to the elf and pulled him to his chest.

“Amatus...”, he said quietly and pressed a kiss on top of his head. “I won't leave you alone, not if you need me. You're safe now. I'll keep you safe.”

Both of them stayed like this till late in the night, when Dorian noticed that Fen'an was fallen asleep  in his arms. He didn't leave but brought them both into a more comfortable position, fearing that one of them would suffer from a stiff neck in the morning otherwise.

To his surprise he had to noticed that the elf, despite having been dead ass drunk the night before, didn't show any signs of being hung over. He was just really happy to find Dorian next to him. Also, he had to admit, it was nice to wake up and feel the warmth of the elf on his body. He could get used to that, he thought.

The only true sufferer was Lavi, who was woken up by Sera the next morning and found herself on the same bench she had been fallen asleep on. The elf offered her a glass of water, which she gladly took and she promised herself never to touch any alcoholic liquid again. This time for real!

Her mood did brighten though, when she heard how the night had gone for her brother. At least one of the twins had profited from her suffering.